The life of Christ ..

'

the

LIFE OF CHRIST.

BY THE

y

REV. WILLIAM HANNA, D.D., LL.D.

Vol. II.
CLOSE OF THE MINISTRY,

AND

PASSION WEEK.

NEW YORK:

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS,

530 Broadway.

1876.

33rf8stoerfe fig

JOHN WILSON AND SOW,

Cambridge.

the

Close of the Ministry.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

L — The Descent of the Mount of Transfiguration 1

TI. — The Payment of the Tribute-money — The
Strife as to who should be Greatest in the

Kingdom of Heaven 21

III.— Christ and his Brethren 39

IV. — Christ at the Feast of Tabernacles 56

V.— Jesus the Light of the World 75

VI.— The Cure of the Man Born Blind 94

VH— The Good Shepherd 116

Vm. — Incidents in our Lord's Last Journey to Jeru-
salem 145

IX. — Our Lord's Ministry in Persea 165

X.— The Parables of the Persean Ministry 187

XI. — The Good Samaritan 211

Xn.— The Lord's Prayer 229

Xm. — Jesus the Kesurrection and the Life 248

XIV.— The Eaising of Lazarus 272

ri Contents.

XV. — The Last Journey through Persea : The Ten
Lepers — The Coming of the Kingdom —
The Question of Divorce — Little Children
brought to Him — The Young Ruler £92

XVI. — Jesus at Jericho — The Request of the Sons of

Zebedee 313

XVTL— The Anointing at Bethany 334

THE CLOSE OF THE MINISTRY.

I.

THE DESCENT OP THE MOUNT OP TRANSFIGURA-
TION.*

MORNING has dawned upon the moun-
tain-top which had witnessed the won-
derful night-scene of the transfiguration. Je-
sus and the three disciples begin to descend.
The silence they at first observe is broken by
our Lord turning to his disciples and saying,
44 Tell the vision to no man until the Son of
man be risen again from the dead." A few
days before, Jesus had straitly charged them
that they should tell no man that he was the
Christ. The discovery would be premature.
The people were not prepared for it. It would
come unsuitably as well as unseasonably from

• Matt. xvii. 9-27 ; Mark ix. 9-32 ; Luke ix. 37-45.

2 The Descent of the

the lips of the apostles. It might serve to in-
terrupt that course of things which was to .
guide onward to the great decease to be ac-
complished at Jerusalem. And whatever rea-
sons there were for a temporary concealment
from the multitude of such knowledge as to
their Master's true character and office as the
apostles possessed, still stronger reasons were
there that they should preserve silence as to
this vision on the Mount, the narration of
which would be sure at that time to provoke
nothing but derision. Not even to the other
nine were the three to speak of it till the key
to its true interpretation was in all their hands,
for even by them, in the meantime, it was lit-
tle likely to be rightly apprehended, and it
was not a topic to be rudely handled as a thing
of idle and ignorant talk. The seal thus put
upon the lips of the three, we have no reason
to believe was broken till the time came when
they stood relieved from the obligation it im-
posed. All the more curiously would the mat-
ter be scanned by the three when alone. The
thing that most perplexed them as they did so
was, what the rising from the dead could mean.
They did not venture to put any question to
their Master. Now, upon the mountain side,

Mount op Transfiguration. 3

as afterwards, they were afraid to ask him
about it, with something perhaps of the feel-
ing of those who do not like to ask more about
a matter which has saddened them so much to
hear about at all ; from all fuller and distincter
sight of which they shrink.

But there was a question, and that a very
natural one in the existing circumstances, which
the}r did venture to put to Jesus by the way.
They had just seen Elias standing by the side
of their Master, to be with him in that brief
interview, and then depart. Was this that
coming of the Great Prophet about which the
scribes spoke so much? It could scarcely be
so, for that coming was to precede the advent
of the Messiah. But if Jesus were the Christ,
and this which they had just witnessed were
the coming of Elias, the prescribed prophetic
order would be reversed. In the uncertainty
and confusion of their thoughts they put the
question to their Master, "Why say the scribes
that Elias must first come ?" Jesus had already
— months before — on the occasion of the visit
of the two disciples of the Baptist, said to them
plainly enough, " If ye will receive it, this is
Elias which was to come." They had not fully
understood or received it. In common with

4 The Descent of the

the whole body of their countrymen, their
original idea had been, that it was to be an
actual return of Elijah himself to the earth
which was to be the precursor of the appear-
ance of their Messiah. This conception the
sayings of Jesus may have served partially to
rectify ; but now, when Elijah comes and pre-
sents himself before their eyes, it returns, and
in returning blinds and confuses them once
more. Our Lord's answer is so far clear
enough, that he confirms the dictum of the
scribes as founded on a right reading of the
ancient prophecies, especially of the one by
Malachi, recorded in the fourth chapter of that
prophet's writings.. Tt was true what these
scribes had said, that Elias must first come.
But they were in error when they looked for a
personal visit from the old prophet as the pre-
cursor of the first advent of the Christ. They
had failed to see in the person and ministry of
John one coming in the spirit and power of
Elias. They had taken too hastily the Baptist
at his word when he said he was not Elias, as
in a literal sense he was not. And misappre-
hending his character and mission, they had
allowed their natural dislike to such a person
and ministry as his to grow till it culminated

Mount of Transfigueation. 5

in that act of Herod by which the disliked
preacher of righteousness was cut off. Once
more, therefore, does Jesus renew the testi-
mony he had already borne to the Baptist :
I say unto you that Elias is come already, and
they knew him not, but have done unto him
whatsoever they listed." The treatment they
gave to the forerunner was no inapt symbol of
that which they were preparing for Christ him-
self, for "likewise shall also the Son of man
suffer of them."

Then the disciples understood that " he
spake unto them of John the Baptist." But
did they understand that in his answer to their
inquiry our Lord alluded to another, a future
coming of Elias, of which that of the Baptist
was but a type or a prelude, as well as to
another, a future coming of the Son of man
with which it was to be connected ? Many
think that not obscurely, such an allusion lay
in the words which Christ employed, and that
it is in the two advents, each prefaced with its
appropriate precursorage, that the full and va-
ried language of ancient prophecy receives
alone its fit and adequate accomplishment.

But we must now turn our eye from the lit-
tle group conversing about Elias, as they de-

6 The Descent of the

scended the hill-side, to what was occurring
elsewhere, down in the valley among the villa-
ges that lay at the base of the mountain.
Among the villagers there had occurred a case
of rare and complicated distress. A youth, the
only son of his father, had fallen the victim to
strange and fearful paroxysms, in which his
own proper speech was taken from him, and
he uttered hideous sounds, and foamed, and
gnashed with his teeth, and was cast some-
times into the fire, and sometimes into the wa-
ter, from which he was drawn with difficulty,
and half dead. To bodily and mental distem-
per, occult and incurable, there was added
demoniac possession, mingling itself with and
adding new horrors to the terrible visitations.
With the arrival of Christ and his disciples in
this remote region there had come the fame of
the wonderful cures that he had elsewhere ef-
fected ; cures, many of them, of the very same
kind of malady with which this youth was so
grievously afflicted. On learning that the com-
pany of Galilean strangers had arrived in the
neighborhood of his own dwelling, the father
of this youth thought that the time had come
of relief from that heavy domestic burden that
for years he had been bearing. He brought

Mount of Tkanstigubation. 7

to them his son. Unfortunately, it so hap-
pened that he brought him when Christ and
the three disciples were up in the mountain,
and the nine were left behind. It was to them,
therefore, that the application for relief was
made. It does not appear that when in com-
pany with Christ the disciples were in the hab-
it of claiming or exercising any preternatural
power over disease. No case at least of a cure
effected by their hands in such circumstances is
recorded. But in that short experimental tour,
when they had been sent out away from him
to go two by two through Galilee, Jesus had
given them power over unclean spirits — a pow-
er which they had exercised without check or
failure. And now, when they are left alone,
and this most painful case is brought to them,
they imagine that the same power is in their
hands, and they essay to exercise it. In their
Master's name again and again they command
that unclean spirit to go forth, but their words
return to them void. They stand baffled and
covered with confusion before the crowd that
had gathered to witness the cure. Thiy can
give no reason, for they know none, why the
failure had taken place. Nor are they suffered
to skulk away in their defeat. Some scribes

8 The Descent of the

are there ready enough to take advantage of
the awkward dilemma into which they have
been thrown by assuming an authority which
turns out to be impotent — their Master's char-
acter involved in their defeat. We can well
imagine what an instrument of reproach would
be put thus into the hands of these scribes, and
how diligently and effectively they would em-
ploy it ; pressing the disciples with questions
to which they could give no satisfactory replies,
and turning the whole occurrence to the best
account in the way of casting discredit upon
the Master, as well as upon his disciples. A
great multitude had in the meantime assem-
bled ; a profane, and scoffing, and half-malig-
nant spirit had been stealing into the hearts of
many, when Jesus and the three are seen com-
ing down from the hill-side. The suddenness
of his appearance — his coming at the very time
that his disciples were hard pressed, perhaps,
too, the very calmness and majesty of his ap-
pearance, as some of that glory of the moun-
tain-top still lingers around him — produces p
quick revolution of feeling in the fickle multi-
tude. Straightway a kind of awe — half admi-
ration, half alarm — comes over them, and
"greatly amazed," they leave the scribes and

Mount of Transfiguration. 9

the discomfited disciples, and they run to him
and salute him — not in mockery, certainly, or
hailing him as one whose claims upon their
homage they are ready to set aside — but rather
with a rebound from their recent incredulity,
prepared to pay to him the profounder respect.
And now, as on some battle-field which subor-
dinate officers have entered in absence of their
chief, and in which they have been worsted by
the foe, at the crisis of the day the chief him-
self appears, and at once the tide of battle
turns — so acts the presence of Christ. Bear-
ing back with him the multitude that had run
forth to greet him, he comes up to where the
scribes are dealing with the apostles, and says
to them, "What question ye with them?"
The questioners are struck dumb — stand silent
before the Lord. In the midst of the silence
a man comes forward, kneels down before Je-
sus, tells him what has happened, how fearful
the malady was that had fallen upon his only
child, how he had brought the child to his dis-
ciples and they had failed to cast the devil out
of him. Too much occupied with his own
grief, too eager to seize the chance now given,
that the Master may do what his disciples could
not, he makes no mention of the scribes or of

10 The Descent or the

the hostile feeling against him they have been
attempting to excite. But Jesus knows it all,
sees how in all the various regions then around
him, in the hearts of the people who speak to
him, in the hearts of the disciples from whom
he had temporarily been parted, in the hearts
of those scribes who had been indulging in an
unworthy and premature triumph, the spirit
of incredulity had been acting. Contemplating
the sad picture of prevailing unbelief, there
bursts from his lips the mournful ejaculation,
" 0 faithless, incredulous, and perverse gener-
ation ! How long shall I be with you and you
remain ignorant of who and what I am ? How
shall I suffer you, as you continue to exhibit
such want of trust in my willingness and
power to help and save you?" Not often does
Christ give us any insight into the personal
emotions stirred up within his heart by the
scenes among which he moves — not often does
there issue from his lips anything approaching
to complaint. Here for a moment, out of the
fullness of his heart he speaketh, revealing as
he does so a fountain-head of sorrow lying
deep within his soul, the fullness and bitter-
ness of whose waters, as they were so constant-
ly rising up to flood and overflow his spirit,

Mount of Teansfigueation. 11

who can gauge ? What must it have been for
Jesus Christ to come into such close familiar
contact with the misconceptions and incredu-
lities, and dislikes and oppositions of the men
he lived among? With a human nature like
our own, yet far more exquisitely sensitive
than ours to injustice and false reproach, What
a constant strain and burden must thus have
been laid upon his heart ! What an incalcula-
ble amount of patience must it have called him
to exercise !

The brief lament over the faithless and per-
verse generation uttered, Jesus says to the
father, " Bring thy son hither." And now fol-
lows a scene to which there are few parallels
in scriptural or in any other story, for our vivid
conception of which we are specially indebted
to the graphic pen of the second Evangelist.
They go for the youth and bring him. So soon
as he comes into the presence of Jesus, and
their eyes meet, whether it was that the calm,
benignant, heavenly look of Christ operated as
a kind of stimulant upon a worn-out, weak,
unstrung, excitable, nervous system, or that
the devil, knowing that his time was short,
would raise one last and vehement commotion
within that poor distracted frame, the youth

12 The Descent of the

falls to the ground, wallowing, foaming, torn
by a power he is unable to resist. Jesus looks
upon him as he lies, and all who are around
look at Jesus, wondering what he will do. Is
it easy to imagine a conjunction of outward
circumstances more striking or affecting ? The
youth writhing on the ground, Jesus bending
on him a look of ineffable pity, the father
standing on the tip-toe of eager expectation,
the disciples, the scribes, the multitude, press-
ing on to witness the result. Such was the
season, such were the circumstances, that
Jesus chose for one of the shortest but most
memorable of his conversations. Before he
says or does anything as to the son, he says,
quietly, inquiringly,' compassionately, to the
father : " How long is it ago since this came
unto him ?" The father tells how long, and
tells how terrible it has been ; but as if some-
what impatient at such a question being put at
such a time, he adds, " But if thou canst do
anything, have compassion on us and help us."
Genuine and pathetic utterance of a deep-
smitten fatherly affection, identifying itself with
the object of its love, and intent upon the one
thing of getting that child cured ; all right
here in the father's feeling toward his son, but

Mount ox Transfiguration. 13

something wrong, something defective m the
feeling toward Christ, which for the man's own
sake, and for his son's sake, and for the sake
of that gathered crowd, and for the sake of us,
and of all who shall ever read this narrative,
Jesus desired to seize upon this opportunity to
correct. " If thou canst do anything," the
father says. " If thou canst believe," is our
Lord's quick reply. ' It is not, as thou takest
it, a question as to the extent of my power,
but altogether of the strength of thy faith, for
if thou canst but believe, all things are possible,
this thing can easily be done.' Receiving the
rebuke in the spirit in which it was given,
awaking at once to see and believe that it was
his want of faith that stood in the way of his
son's cure, sensible that he had been wrong in
challenging Christ's power, that Christ was
right in challenging his faith, with a flood of
tears that told how truly humble and broken
his spirit was, the man cries out, "Lord, I
believe ; help thou mine unbelief." Who is
not grateful to the man who lets us see into
that tumult and agony of soul in which true
faith is born, how it is that out of the dull and
fearful spirit of mistrust the genuine child-like
confidence of the heart in Jesus struggles in+

14 The Descent of the

being. "Lord, I believe." 'I have a trust in
thee. I know that thou hast all power at thy
command, and canst exercise it as thou wilt.
But when I look at that which this power of
thine is now called to do, my faith begins to
falter. Lord, help mine unbelief. Thou only
canst do it. Thou only canst strengthen this
weak and failing heart of mine. It is thine to
cure the bodily distemper of my son. It is
thine to heal the spiritual infirmities of my soul.'
What a mixture here of weakness and strength
— the cry for help betraying the one, yet in
that very cry the other standing revealed !
Few utterances that have come from human
lips have carried more in them of the spirit
that we should all seek to cherish, nor would it
be easy to calculate how many human beings
have taken up the language this man taught
them to employ, and who have said to Jesus,
"Lord, we believe ; help thou our unbelief."

In answer to this confession and this prayer,
something still further might have been said,
had not our Lord perceived a fresh pressure in
upon them of the neighboring crowd, at sight
of which he delayed no longer, but, turning to
him who still lies upon the ground before him,
i words of sternness and decision he says,

Mount of Transfiguration. 15

"Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee
come out of him, and enter no more into him."
A fresh cry of agony — a last and most violent
convulsion — and the poor afflicted youth lies
stretched out so motionless, that many, looking
at him, say that he is dead. But Jesus takes
him by the hand and lifts him up, and delivers
him perfectly cured to his glad and grateful
father. The work was done, the crowd dis-
persed, " all amazed at the mighty power of
God."

Afterwards, when alone with him in the
house, the apostles asked Jesus why it was that
they could not cast the devil out. He told
them that it was because of their unbelief.
They had suffered perhaps that late announce-
ment which he had made to them of his im-
pending sufferings and death to dim or disturb
their faith, or they had allowed that still more
recent selection of the three, and his withdrawal
from them up into the mountain, to engender
a jealousy which weakened that faith. One
way or other, their faith had given way, and
in its absence they had tried the power of their
Master's name, in the hope that it might act as
a charm or talisman. Jesus would have them
know that it was not thus that his name waa

16 The Descent of the

rightly, or could ever effectively, be employed.
Yet at the same time he would have them
know that the kind of spirit by which this
youth had been possessed was one not easy of
ejection— which required, in fact, on the part
of the ejector, such a faith as could only be
reached by much prayer and fasting ; teaching
them thus, in answer to their inquiry, the
double lesson — that the primary source of
their failure lay in the defect of their faith ; and
that the manner in which that faith could alone
be nourished up to the required degree of
strength was by fasting and by prayer, by
weaning themselves from the pursuits and en-
joyments of sense, by repeated and earnest
supplications to the Giver of every good and
perfect gift, whose office it is to work in his
people the work of faith with power. At the
same time Jesus took the opportunity which
this private interview with his disciples afforded
— as he had taken the opportunity of his inter-
view with the importunate father — to proclaim
the great power, the omnipotence of faith.*
This obviously was the one great lesson which,
in this passage of his earthly history, Jesua
designed to teach.

Matt. xvii. 20.

Mount of Transfiguration. 17

Sudden and very striking must have been
the transition from the brightness, the blessed-
ness of that sublime communion with Moses
and Elias on the mount, to the close contact
with human misery in the shape of the pos-
sessed lunatic who lay writhing at his feet ; so
sharp and impressive the contrast that the
prince of painters, in his attempt to picture to
our eye the glories of the Transfiguration, has
thrown in the figure of the suffering child at
the base of the mountain. But more even
than by this contact with human misery does
oUr Saviour seem on this occasion to have
been impressed by his coming into such close
contact with so many forms of human unbelief.
And he appears to have framed and selected
this as the first occasion on which to announce,
not only the need and the benefit, but the
illimitable power of faith.

He could easily have arranged it so that no
application had been made to his disciples in
his absence, but then they had wanted the les-
son the failure carried in its bosom. He could
easily have cured the maniac boy at once and
by a word ; but then this father had missed
that lesson which, in the short preliminary con-
versation with him, was conveyed. And through

18 The Descent of the

both, to us and to all, the great truth is made
known that in this world of sin and sorrow the
prime necessity is, that we should have faith in
God and faith in Jesus Christ — not a faith in
certain truths or propositions about God or
about Jesus Christ — but simple, child-like trust
in God as our Father, in Jesus as our Saviour ;
a faith that will lead us in all times of our
weakness and exposure, and temptation and dis-
tress, to fly to them to succor us, casting our-
selves upon a help that never was refused to
those who felt their need of it. Neither for
our natural nor for our spiritual life is the
physical removal of mountains necessary : if it
were, we believe that it would be given in an-
swer to believing prayer ; but mountains of
difficulty there are, moral and spiritual, which
do need to be removed ere our way be made
plain, and we be carried smoothly and prosper-
ously along it ; corruptions within us to be
subdued : temptations without us to overcome.
These must be met, and struggled with, and
overcome. It is by the might and mastery of
faith and prayer that this can alone be accom-
plished. And it is no small comfort for us to
be assured, on the word of our Lord himself,
that though our faith be small in bulk as the

Mount of Transfiguration. 19

mustard seed, yet if it be genuine, if it humbly
yet firmly take hold of the mighty power of
God and hang upon it, it will avail to bring
that power down to our aid and rescue, so that,
weak as we are in ourselves, and strong as the
world is to overcome us, yet greater shall he be
that is with us than he that is in the world,
and we shall be able to do all things through
him who strengtheneth us. Prayer, it has
been said, moves him who moves the universe.
But it is faith which gives to prayer the faculty
of linking itself in this way with Omnipotence,
and calling it to human aid. And so you find
that, in one of the other two instances in which
Jesus made use of the same expressions as to
the power of faith which he employed upon
this occasion, he coupled faith and prayer
together. "Master," said Peter, wondering at
the effect which a single word of Jesus had
produced, — " Master, behold, the fig-tree which
thou cursedst is withered away. And Jesus
answering said unto them, Have faith in God.
For verily I say unto you, That whosoever
shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed,
and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not
doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those
things which he saith shall come to pass, he

20 The Descent op the Mount:

shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I
say unto you, What things soever ye desire
when ye pray, believe that ye receive them,
and ye shall have them." Wonderful words,
assigning an all-embracing, an absolutely un-
limited efficacy to faith and prayer — words
not to be lightly judged of, as if they were in-
tended to encourage the rash and the ignorant
conceits and confidences of a presumptuous
enthusiasm — but words of truth and soberness,
notwithstanding the width and compass of their
embrace, if only we remember that true faith
will confide in God, or Christ, only for that as
to which he invites, and so warrants, its confi-
dence ; and true prayer will ask for that alone
which is agreeable to the will of God, and will
promote the spiritual and eternal good of him
upon whom it is bestowed. These are the con-
ditions— natural and reasonable — which under-
lie all that Christ has said of the power of faith
and prayer. And within these conditions we
accept all that he has said as true in itself, and
wanting only a firmer faith, and a more un-
doubting prayer than we have exercised or put
forth, to receive its fulfillment in our own ex-
perience.

n.

THE PAYMENT OP THE TRIBUTE MONEY THE

STRIFE AS TO WHO SHOULD BE GREATEST IN
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.*

'ROM his retirement in the neighborhood
of Csesarea-Philippi, Jesus returned to
Galilee — not, however, to resume his publie
ministry there. He sought privacy now, even
among the scenes of his former labors — a pri-
vacy that he wished to consecrate to the fur-
ther enlightenment of the twelve as to his own
character and office, and the true nature of the
kingdom he came to institute. f It was in ful-
fillment of this purpose that on the way from
the scene of the Transfiguration to his old
haunts about Capernaum, he made a second
announcement of his impending death and re-
surrection, adding to the details of his passion

* Matt. xvii. 22-27 ; xviii. 1-35 ; Mark ix. 33-41 ; Luke ix. 43-50.
t Mark ix. 30, 31.

22 The Payment op

formerly given that of his betrayal. So hid
was the meaning of Christ's words, that all that
the apostles appear to have derived from them
was a vague impression that some great and
decisive event, in their Master's history were
drawing near, in contemplation of which they
began disputing among themselves which should
be greatest in the kingdom which they hoped
to see so soon set up — keeping, as they ima-
gined, their disputings about this topic con-
cealed from Christ.

On their arrival at Capernaum the persons
appointed to receive the annual tribute which
was paid for the support of the Temple servi-
ces, came to Peter and said to him, "Doth not
your Master pay tribute ?" Those who put
this question were not the publicans or ordi-
nary tax-gatherers who levied the dues laid
upon the Jews by their governors the Romans.
Nor was the question one about the payment
of any common tax, any civil impost. The
very form of the question, had it been literally
rendered, would have indicated this, " Doth
not your Master pay the didrachma ?" a mod-
ern coin then in circulation, equivalent in value
to the old half-shekel, which, having gone out
of use, had become rare. Every Jew of twenty

The Tribute Money. 23

years old and upward was required to give a
half-shekel yearly for the maintenance first of
the Tabernacle, and afterwards of the Temple.
Although this payment was legally imposed, it
does not appear to have been enforced by civil
pains or penalties. It was left rather, like
other of the Mosaic imposts, to the spontane-
ous action of conscience, and a good-will to-
wards the theocracy on the part of the people.
It was to the payment of this didrachma or
half-shekel for tlie upholding of the Temple
and its ordinances, that the question put to
St. Peter referred. It is impossible for us to
say positively in what spirit or with what mo-
tive the question was put. It certainly was
not the question of the lynx-eyed collectors of
the ordinary revenue, detecting an attempted
evasion of the payment of one or other of the
common taxes. From no civil obligation laid
upon him by law did Jesus ever claim to be
exempt, nor would the argument which he used
afterwards with the apostle, embodying a
claim to exemption in this case, have been ap-
plicable to any such obligation. But why did
those to whom the gatherers of this ecclesiasti-
cal impost was intrusted speak as they did to
St. Peter? Was it from doubt or ignorance

24 The Payment of

on their part as to whether Jesus ought to be
asked or now meant to pay this tax ? Priests,
Levites, prophets, some tell us, that even Rab-
bis were held to be free from this payment.
Had Christ's retirement now from public duty
suggested the idea that he had thrown aside
that character under which immunity might
have been claimed by him, and that he might
be called upon therefore to submit to all the
ordinary obligations under which every com-
mon inhabitant of the country was laid ? Or
was this a piece of rude impertinence on the
part of the under officials of the hierarchy,
who, seeing this disfavor into which Jesus had
sunk with their superiors, were quick to take
advantage of their commission to obtrude a
question that seemed to cast some reproach on
Christ as if he were a defaulter ? Some color is
given to the supposition that it was in a sinister
spirit that the inquiry was made, from the cir-
cumstance of St. Peter's prompt reply — a reply
in which there may have been indignation at
an implied suspicion, and a scorn at disputing
about such a trifle — so that without any com-
munication with Jesus he shuts the mouths of
these gainsayers by saying, Yes ; his Master
paid or would pay the tribute.

The Tkibute Money. 25

Had the tone in which the question was
asked, and the apostle's reply was given, been
known to us, we might have told whether it*
was so or not. As it is, it can only be a con-
jecture that it was in a hostile and malicious
spirit that the collectors of the tribute-money
acted. Peter, however, was too rash and
hasty. It might be true enough that his Mas-
ter had no desire to avoid that or any other
service which he owed to the Temple and to its
worship. It might be safe enough in him to
undertake for his Master so trilling a payment,
which, whether Jesus acquiesced in the engage-
ment or not, the apostle could easily find the
means for meeting. But in such an instant ac-
knowledgment of the obligation there was an
overlooking on Peter's part of the dignity of
Christ's person, and of his position towards the
Temple. To remind him of this oversight, to
recall 'his attention to what was implied in his
own recent confession at Csesarea-Philippi,
when they were come into the house, without
waiting for any communication from Peter as
to what had occurred, Jesus said to him, "What
thinkest thou, Simon ? of whom do the kings
of the earth take custom or tribute ? of their
own children, or of strangers ?" — those who are

26 The Payment of

not members of their own family — not sons,
but subjects. Peter saith to him, " Of the lat-
ter, of strangers. Jesus saith to him, Then are
the children free." Upon this simple principle
Christ would have Peter to recognize his im-
munity from that tribute which was now
claimed — for was he not greater than the Tem-
ple ? Did he not bear to that Temple the rela-
tion of the son in the house of his Father ?
And did he not as such stand free from all the
obligations which the King and Lord of that
house had laid upon his servants, his subjects ?
It will not be easy to show any pertinence as-
sumed in the plea for immunity thus presented,
without admitting the altogether peculiar rela-
tionship in which Christ stood to the Father.
Accept the truth of his divine Sonship to the
Father, and the plea holds good ; reject that
truth, and the plea seems weak and void.
And was it not for the purpose of still further
illustrating that very Sonship to God which
Peter for the moment had forgotten, that our
Lord directed him to do that which in the issue
carried with it so remarkable a proof that in
the Great Temple of the visible creation Jesus
was not a servant but a son ; that everywhere
within and over that house he ruled; that all

The Tribute Money. 27

things there were ready to serve him — the
flowers of the field, the birds of the air, the fish
of the sea, — seeing that at Christ's bidding one
of the latter was to be ready to grasp at Peter's
hook, and on being taken up was to have in
its mouth the stater, the four-drachm piece, the
very sum required from two persons for the
yearly Temple tax ? It is as viewed in this
connection that a miracle which otherwise
would look needless and undignified — out of
keeping with the general character of our Lord's
great works, all of which in some way have
something more than mere exhibiting of power
— takes rank with all the rest as illustrative of
the high character and office of the Redeemer.
It was not want which forced our Lord upon
this forth-putting of his divinity. Even had
the bag which Judas carried been for the mo-
ment empty, the sum required to meet this
payment was not so large but that it could
easily have been otherwise procured ; but in
the manner in which the need was met Jesus
would set forth that character on the ground
of which he might have claimed immunity, —
throwing over the depths of his earthly poverty
the glory of his divine riches, and making ii
manifest how easy it had been for him to have

28 The Payment op

laid all nature under contribution to supply all
his wants. Yet another purpose was served
by this incident in our Saviour's life. In point
of time it harmonizes with the first occasions
on which Jesus began to speak of that Church,
that separate society which was to spring forth
out of the bosom of Judaism, and to take the
place of the old theocracy. Had he, without
explanation made, at once ratified the engage-
ment that Peter made for him, it might have
been interpreted as an acknowledgment of
his subjection to the customs and laws of the
old covenant. That no offence might be taken
— taken in ignorance by those who were igno-
rant of the ground upon which immunity from
this payment on his part might have been as-
serted— he was willing to do as Peter said he
would. In this it became him to fulfill all the
righteousness of the law, but even in doing so
he will utter in private his protest, and in the
mode wherein that protest is embodied convey
beforehand no indistinct intimation that a
breach was to take place between the Temple
service and the new community of the free of
which he was to be the Head.

It is extremely difficult to determine what
the exact order of events was on the arrival nt

The Tribute Money. 29

Capernaum. If it were while they were on
the way to the house — most likely that of
Peter, in which Jesus took up his abode — that
the collectors of the Temple tax made their
application, then the first incident after the
arrival would be the short conversation with
Simon, and the despatching him to obtain the
stater from the fish's mouth upon the lake.
In Peter's absence, and after they had entered
the house, Jesus may have said to his disciples,
" What was it that ye disputed among your-
selves by the way ?'? They were so struck by
surprise, had been so certain that their Master
had not overheard the dispute that had taken
place, that they had no answer to give to his
inquiry. Meanwhile, Peter has returned from
his errand, and reported its result, while they
in turn report to him the inquiry that had been
made of them. Let us remember here that
up to the time of the arrival in the neighbor-
hood of Caesarea-Philippi, no instance is on
record of any controversy having arisen among
the personal attendants on Christ as to the
different positions they were to occupy in his
kingdom. All had hitherto been so vague and
indefinite as to the time and manner of the
institution of the kingdom, that all conjecture

30 The Payment of

or anticipation as to their relative places therein
had been kept in abeyance. Now, however,
they see a new tone and manner in their Mas-
ter. He speaks of things — they do not well
know what — which are about to occur in Jeru-
salem. He tells them that there were some of
them standing there before him which should
not taste of death till they had seen the king-
dom of God. Which of them could it be for
whom such honor was in reserve ? He takes
Peter and James and John up with him to the
mount, and appears there before them in so
new an aspect, invested with such a strange
and exceeding glory, that the privilege of be-
ing present at such a spectacle must have ap-
peared to the three as a singular distinction
conferred upon them. They were not to tell
the others what they had seen, but they could
scarcely fail to tell them they had seen some-
thing wonderful beyond anything that had
happened in our Lord's wonderful life, which
they were not permitted to reveal. Would
not the seal of secrecy so imposed enhance in
their estimation the privilege which had been
conferred on them, and would it not in the
same degree be apt to awaken a jealousy on
the part of the nine ? At the very time, then,

The Tkebute Money. 31

that they all began to look out for the coming
of the kingdom as near at hand, by the mate-
rials thus supplied for pride with some, for
envy with the rest, an apple of discord was
thrown in among the twelve. They were but
men of like passions with ourselves. They had
as yet no other notion of the kingdom that
was shortly to appear than that it would be a
temporal one ; that their Master was to become
a powerful and victorious prince, with places,
honors, wealth, at his command. And what
more natural than that they whom he had
chosen to be confidential attendants in the days
of his humiliation should be then signally ex-
alted and rewarded? Such being their com-
mon expectations, any mark of partiality on
Christ's part would be particularly noted ; and
what more natural than that such a signal one
as that bestowed upon the three, in their be-
ing chosen as the only witnesses of the Trans-
figuration, should have stirred up the strife by
the way as to who should be the greatest in
the kingdom of heaven ?

Tins' first outbreak of selfishness and pride
and ambition and envy and strife, among his
chosen companions, was a great occasion in the
sight of Jesus. It might and it did spring in a

32 The Payment of

large extent from ignorance, and, with the re-
moval of that ignorance, might be subdued ;
but it might and it did spring from sources
which, after fullest knowledge had been con-
veyed of what the kingdom was and wherein
its distinctions lay, might still have power to
flood the Church with a whole host of evils.
Therefore it was that Jesus would signalize thiy
occasion by words and an act of particular
impressiveness. Peter had returned from the
lake-side with the stater in his hand to pay for
himself and for Jesus. The others told him of
the questions that had been put to them, and
of the silence they had observed. As they do
so, this new instance of Peter's selection for a
separate service stirs the embers of their former
strife, and in their curiosity and impatience one
of them is bold enough to say to Jesus, "Who
is or shall be the greatest in the kingdom of
heaven ? " Jesus sits down, calls the twelve
that they might be all around him, and says to
them, — " If any man desire to be first, the same
shall be last." ' If any man, actuated by self-
ish, covetous, ambitious motives, seek to be
first in my kingdom, he shall be last — the very
efforts that he shall make to climb to the high-
est elevation there being of their very nature

The Tribute Monet. 33

such as shall plunge him to the lowest depths.
But if any man would be first within that king-
dom, first in goodness, first in usefulness, first
in honor there, let him be last, willing to be the
servant of others, ready to esteem others better
than himself, prepared to take any place, to
make any sacrifice, to render any service, pro-
vided only that others' welfare be thereby ad-
vanced. In humbling himself so, that man shall
be exalted. I give to this great truth a visible
and memorable representation/ Jesus called a
little child to him, set him in the midst, then
took him into his arms, and said, — "Verily I
say unto you, Except ye be converted, and be-
come as little children, ye shall not enter into
the kingdom of heaven." ' Ye are fighting
about places, power, pre-eminence in my king-
dom ; but I tell you that the selfishness, the
pride, the ambition, out of which all such strife
emerges, are so wholly alien from the nature
of that kingdom which I have come to intro-
duce and establish, that unless you be changed
in spirit, and become meek, humble, teachable,
submissive as this little child which I now hold
so gently in my arms, ye cannot enter into that
kingdom, much less rise to places of distinction
there. You wish to know who shall be great-

34 The Steefe as to

est in that kingdom. It shall not be the wisest,
the wealthiest, the most powerful, but whoso-
ever shall most humble himself, and in humility
be likest to this little child, the same shall be
greatest in the kingdom of heaven.' ' If that
be true,' we can fancy the apostles thinking
and saying, ' if all personal distinction and pre-
eminence must be renounced by us, if in seek-
ing to be first we must be last, and each be the
servant of all the others, what then will become
of our official influence and authority — who will
receive and obey us as thy representatives ? '
Our Lord's reply is this — ' Your true and best
reception as my ambassadors does not depend
upon the external rank you hold, or the official
authority with which you may be clothed. It
depends upon your own personal qualities as
humble, loving, devoted followers of me. This
is true of you and of all ; for whosoever receiv-
eth one such little child — one of these little ones
which believe in me, in my name — receiveth
me ; and whosoever receiveth me, receiveth not
me but him that sent me.'

This new idea about receiving the least of
Christ's little ones in Christ's name, awakens in
the breast of one of his auditors a troubling re-
membrance. John recollects that he and some

"Who should be Greatest. 86

others of the disciples had once seen a man cast-
ing out devils in the name of Christ, and that
they had forbidden him to do so, because, as
they thought, he had no authority to do so, had
received no commission, was not even openly a
follower of Jesus. Somewhat in doubt now,
after what he has heard, as to whether they had
been right in doing so, he states the case to Je-
sus, and gets at once the distinct and emphatic
" Forbid him not, for there is no man which
shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly
speak evil of me." John had judged this man
rashly and severely, had counted him guilty of
presumption in attempting, whilst standing out-
side the circle of Christ's acknowledged friends
and followers, to do anything in his name ;
had doubted or disbelieved that he was a disci-
ple of or a believer in Jesus. Full of the spirit
of officialism, in the pride of his order as one
of the selected twelve, to whom alone, as he
imagined, the power of working miracles in
Chrst's name had been committed, John had in-
terfered to arrest his procedure, — acting thus as
the young man and as Joshua did, of whom
've read in the Book of Numbers, "And there
ran a young man, and told Moses, and said,
Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp.

36 The Steife as to

And Joshua the son of Nun, answered and
said, My lord Moses, forbid them." But Moses,
in the very spirit of Christ, said, " Enviest thou
for my sake ? Would God that all the Lord's
people were prophets, and that the Lord
would put his Spirit upon them!"* "Forbid
him not," said Jesus. ' His doing a miracle in
my name is a far better evidence of his cherish-
ing a real trust in me, being one of mine, than
any external position or official rank that he
could occupy. Be not hasty in deciding as to
who are and who are not my genuine disciples ;
for while that is true which I taught you when
I was speaking of those who alleged that I cast
out devils by Beelzebub the prince of the devils,
that " he that is not with me is against me, and
he that gathereth not with me scattereth
abroad, "f it is no less true that " he that is not
against us is on our part." Neither of the
two sayings, indeed, can be universally and
unlimitedly applied ; but there are circum-
stances in which absence of open hostility may
of itself be taken as evidence of friendship ;
and there are circumstances in which absence
of open friendship may of itself be taken as
evidence of hostility. Instead of overlooking,

* Numbers xi. 27, 29. t Matt. sii. 30.

Who should be Greatest. 37

as they had done, such a strong conclusive evi-
dence as that of working miracles in Christ's
name, John and the others should have been
ready, as their Master was, to recognize the
slightest token of attachment. " For whoso-
ever," added Jesus, "shall give you a cup of
water to drink, in my name, because ye belong
to Christ, verily I say unto you, He shall not
lose his reward."

"The beginning of strife," the wise man said,
"is as when one letteth out water." And that
beginning of strife among the apostles of Christ
as to which of them should be greatest, what a
first letting out was it of those bitter waters of
contention, envy, and all uncharitableness,
which the centuries since Christ's time have
seen flooding the church — its members strug-
gling for such honors and emoluments, or, when
these were but scanty, for such authority and
influence as ecclesiastical offices and positions
could confer! Slow, indeed, has that society
which bears his name been of learning the les-
son which, first in precept, and then in his own
exalted example, the Saviour left behind him,
that " whosoever exalte th himself shall be
abased, and he that humble th himself shall be
exalted."

38 The Strife to be Greatest.

We have had before us the first of the two
instances in which John was led away by a
fiery and intemperate zeal — in this instance, to
misjudge and condemn one who, though he had
not faith nor fortitude enough to leave all and
follow Jesus, yet had faith enough to enable him
to work miracles in Christ's name. It is not
told us how John took the check which Jesus
laid upon that spirit of officialism and fanaticism
which had been working in his breast. But we
do know how thoroughly that spirit was at last
subdued in the heart of the meekest and most
loving of the twelve, and how he moved after-
ward through his fellow-men with step of Christ-
like gentleness, and became " the guardian
spirit of the little ones of the kingdom."

III.

CHRIST AND HIS BRETHREN.*

WE like to follow those wlio by their say-
ings and doings have filled and dazzled
me public eye, into the seclusion of their homes.
We like to see such men in their undress,
when, all restraint removed, their peculiarities
of character are free to exhibit themselves in
the countless artless ways and manners of
daily domestic life. It brings them so much
nearer to us, gives us a closer hold of them,
makes us feel more vividly their kinship to us,
to know how they did the things that we have
all every day to do, how they comported them-
selves in the circumstances in which we all
every day are placed. Great pains have been
taken by biographers of distinguished men to
gratify this desire. Quite apart, indeed, from
any object of this kind, we could scarcely sit

* John vh. 1-9.

40 Christ and his Brethren.

down to write out an account of what we saw
and heard in the course of two or three years'
close intercourse with a friend, without drop-
ping many a hint as to the minor modes and
habits of his life.

Is there nothing remarkable in the entire
absence of anything of this kind in the narra-
tive of the four Evangelists ? Engrossed with
what they tell us, we think not of what they
have left untold ; think not, for example, that
they have left no materials for gratifying the
desire that we have spoken of — one so natural
and so strong. It is, as if in writing these nar-
ratives a strong bias of our nature had been
put under restraint. They say not a word
about the personal appearance of their Master j
there is nothing for the painter or sculptor to
seize on. They give us no details of his pri-
vate and personal habits, of any peculiarities
of look or speech or gesture, of the times or
ways of his doing this thing or that. St. Mark,
the most graphic describer of the four, tells us
once or twice of a particular look or motion of
our Lord, but not so as to indicate anything
distinctive in their manner. Why this silence ?
Why thus withhold from us all means of form-
ing; a vivid conception of the Redeemer's per-

Christ and his Brethren. 41

eonal appearance, and of following him through
the details of his more familiar daily inter-
course with the twelve ? Was it that the ma-
terials were wanting, that there were no per-
sonal peculiarities about Jesus Christ, that in-
wardly and outwardly all was so nicely bal-
anced, all was in such perfect harmony and
proportion, that as in his human intellect and
human character, there was nothing to distin-
guish him individually from his fellow-men, —
nothing, I mean, of that kind by which all the
individual intellects and characters are each
specially characterized — so even in the minor
habits of his life there was nothing distinctive
to be recorded ? Or was it that the veil has
been purposely drawn over all such materials,
to check all that superstitious worship of the
senses, which might have gathered round mi-
nute pictures of our Lord in the acts and habits
of his daily life ? If, even as it is, the passion
for such worship has made the food for itself
to feed upon, and, living upon that food, has
swelled out into such large proportions, what
should it have been if such food had from the
first been provided ? Is it not well that the
image of our Lord in his earthly life, while
having^ the crint of our humanity so clearly

42 Chkist and his Brethren.

and fully impressed upon it, should yet be lif-
ted up and kept apart, and all done that could
be done to keep it from being sullied by such
rude, familiar, irreverent regard ?

What is true of our Lord's habits generally,
is true of his religious habits — of the time and
manner in which religious duties were per-
formed. We know something of the manner
in which these duties were discharged by a
truly devout Jew of Christ's age, of the daily
washings before meals, and the frequent fast-
ings, and the repeated and long prayers, of the
attendance at the synagogue, and the regular
going up to the great feasts at Jerusalem.
Some of these Jesus appears to have neglected.
The scribes and the Pharisees came to him
saying, " Why do thy disciples transgress the
tradition of the elders ? for they wash not their
hands when they eat bread."* Again they
came to him with another similar complaint,
"Why do the disciples of John fast often and
make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the
Pharisees, but thine eat and drink ?" These
charges are brought nominally against the dis-
ciples, who only followed the example of their

* Matt. xv. 2.

Christ and his Brethren. 43

Master. He neglected the ordinary ablutions
to* which in Jewish eyes a sacred character at-
tached. He himself did not fast, and he taught
his disciples that when they did so it was to be
in such a manner that men might not know
that they were fasting. Of the times and the
manner in which our Lord's private devotions
were conducted, how little is revealed ! You
read of his rising up a great while before day,
and retiring into a solitary place to pray.*
You read of his sending the multitude away
and going up into a mountain to pray ; of his
continuing all night in prayer.*}* You read of
special acts of devotion connected with his bap-
tism, his transfiguration, his agony in the gar-
den, his suffering on the cross. We know that
it was by him, and him alone, of all the chil-
dren of men, that the precept " pray without
ceasing " was fully and perfectly kept— kept by
its being in the spirit of prayer that his whole
life was spent, — but when we ask what Christ's
daily habit was, how often each day did he en-
gage in specific acts of devotion, and how,
when he did so, were these acts performed —

* Mark i. 35.

+ Matt. xiv. 23 ; Luke vi. 12.

44 Christ and his Brethren.

did he retire each morning and evening from
his disciples to engage in prayer ? did he daily,
morning and evening pray with and for his
disciples? — the Evangelists leave us without
an answer. The single thing they tell us, and
it conveys but little precise information, is, that
" it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a
certain place, when he ceased, one of his disci-
ples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as
John also taught his disciples."* This took
place during the last six months of cur Lord's
ministry. It looks as if the disciples had come
upon their Master when engaged in his solitary
devotions, and had been so struck with what
they saw and heard, that one of them, when
the prayer was over, could not help asking him
to teach them to pray. Remembering that this
happened at so late a p.eriod in their inter-
course with him, does it not seem as if Jesus
had not been in the habit of daily leading their
devotions ? The very difficulty that we feel in
understanding how at such a time such a ques-
tion came to be put to him, shows us what a
blank there is here in the evangelic narrative,

* Luke xi. 1.

Chkist and his Brethren. 45

and how ignorant we must be content to re-
main.

If the generally accepted chronology of our
Lord's life be the true one — and we see no
reason to reject it — we are not left in such
ignorance as to how another of the religious
duties practised at the time by those around
him was discharged by Christ. His ministry in
Galilee lasted eighteen months. During this
period four of the great annual religious fes-
tivals which the Jews were enjoined to attend
had taken place at Jerusalem — two Pentecosts,
one Passover, and one Feast of Tabernacles, —
at none of which Jesus appeared. There was
indeed a reason for his absence, grounded on
the state of feeling against him existing in Jeru-
salem, and the resolution already taken by the
Jewish leaders there to cut him off by death.
Till his work in Galilee was completed he would
not place himself in the circumstances which
would inevitably lead on to that doom being exe-
cuted. But who of all around him knew of
that or any other good or sufficient reason for
his absenting himself from these sacred festivals?
And to them what a perplexing fact must that
absence have appeared ! Altogether, when
you take the entire attitude, bearing, and con-

4:6 Christ and his Brethren.

duct of Jesus Christ as to their ablutions,
their fastings, their prayers, their keeping of
the Sabbath, their attendance at the feasts, it
is not difficult to imagine what an inexplicable
mystery he must have been to the great major-
ity of his countrymen. I do not speak now of
the scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, of whom
his teaching and his life was' one continued re-
buke, and who hated him with a deadly hatred
from the first, but of the many sincerely devout,
superstitiously religious Jews amongst whom he
lived. What a perfect puzzle to such the char-
acter and career of this man Christ Jesus — one
speaking so much and in such a way of God
and of godliness, proclaiming the advent of
God's own kingdom on the earth, unfolding its
duties, its privileges, its blessednesses, yet to their
seeming so neglectful, so undevout, so irreli-
gious ! We may not be able now thoroughly
to put ourselves in these men's position-
thoroughly to understand with what kind of
eyes it was that they looked upon that wonder-
ful spectacle which the life of Jesus pressed
upon their vision ; but we should be capable
of discerning the singular and emphatic protest
which that life was ever raising against all mere
formal piety, the piety of times and seasons

Christ and his Brethren. 47

and ordinances, the religion of rule and of
routine.

But let us now rejoin our Lord. He is once
more at Capernaum, or in its neighborhood.
A year and a half has elapsed since he joined
the bands in company with whom he had gone
up to Jerusalem to. keep the second Passover
after his baptism. It is autumn, and all around
are busy in preparing for their journey to the
capital to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
But he exhibits no intention to accompany
them. He is going apparently to treat this
festival as he had done the four which preceded
it. What others thought of his behavior in
this respect we are left to conjecture. His
brethren, however — those who were either his
actual brothers or his cousins — the members
of that household in which he had been brought
up — could not let the opportunity pass without
telling him what they thought of his conduct.
He and they had latterly been separated.
They did not believe in him. They did not
rank themselves among his disciples. Yet un-
interested spectators of what had been going
on in Galilee they could not remain. Kow
that Joseph was dead, he was the head of
their family, and they could not but feel that

48 Christ and his Brethren.

their position and prospects were in some way
linked with his. Somewhat proud they could
not but be that he had excited such great atten-
tion, done such wonderful works, drawn after
him such vast crowds. At first, with all their
incredulity, they were half inclined to hope
that some great future was in store for him.
One who spake so highly and with such author-
ity as he did, who claimed and exercised such
power, what might he not be and do in a com-
munity so peculiarly placed, so singularly ex-
citable as the Jewish one then was ? He
might even prove to be the Messiah, the great
princely leader of the people, for whom so
many were waiting. Against that was the
whole style and character of his teaching — in
which, instead of there being anything ad-
dressed to the social or political condition of
the people, anything fitted to stir up the spirit
of Jewish pride and independence, there was
everything calculated to soothe and subdue —
to lead the thoughts and hopes of the people
in quite other than earthly channels. Against it,
too, there was the fact, becoming more appar-
ent as the months ran on, that the natural
leaders of the community — the scribes and Phar-
isees— by and through whom it could only be

Christ and his Brethren. 4.9

that any great civil emancipation could be
effected, were uniting against him in a bond of
firmer and fiercer hostility. Even the crowds
of the common people, which had at first sur-
rounded him, were latterly declining, offended
at the way in which he was beginning to speak
of himself — telling them that except they ate
his flesh and drank his blood they had no life
in them. Emboldened by all this to use the
old familiarity to which in other days they had
been accustomed, his brethren come to him
and say, "Depart hence and go into Judea,
that thy disciples also may see the works ' that
thou doest. For there is no man that doeth
anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to
be known openly : if thou do these things,
shew thyself to the world." Imputing to him
the common motives by which all worldly,
selfish, ambitious men are animated, they
taunt him with weakness and folly. Who that
possessed such powers as he did would be sat-
isfied with turning them to such poor account ?
If he were what he seemed, was he to hide
himself forever among these hills of Galilee,
and not go up boldly to the capital, and wrest
from the rulers the acknowledgment of his
claims ? It was but a pitiful success to draw

50 Chkist akd his Bketheen.

after him some thousands of a gaping multi-
tude, who followed him because they ate of
the bread that he furnished and were filled —
all whose faith in him was exhausted in won-
dering at him as the worker of such miracles.
Let him, if he had the spirit of a true courage in
him — if he was fit to take the leadership of the
people — let him aim at once at far higher
game, place himself at once in the centre of
influence at Jerusalem, and show himself to the
world. Then if on that broad theatre he made
his pretensions good, it would be some honor
to claim connection with him, some benefit to
be enrolled as his followers.

How true is all this to that spirit of a mere
earthly prudence and policy by which the lives
of multitudes are regulated ! Christ's own bro-
thers judge of him by themselves. They can-
not conceive but that he must desire to make
the most for his own benefit and aggrandize-
ment of whatever gifts he possessed. They
count it to be weak in him, or worse, that he
will not do the most he can in this way and for
this end. They measure all by outward and
visible success. And if success of that kind be
not realized, all the chances and opportunities
that are open to him they regard as thrown

Christ and his Brethren. 51

away and lost. In speaking thus to Jesus they
sever themselves by a wide interval from their
great relative. He was not of this world.
Unselfish, unworldly were all his motives, aims,
and ends. They are of the world, and true
children of the world they are, in thus address-
ing him, proving themselves to be. And this
they must be told at least, if they will not
effectually be taught. It was in a tone of
assumed superiority that they had spoken to
him when they prescribed the course he should
pursue. How far above them does he rise, as,
from that altitude whose very height hid it
from their eyes, he calmly yet solemnly rolls
back on them their rebuke — " My time is not
yet come, but your time is always ready. The
world cannot hate you, but me it hateth, be-
cause I testify of it that the works thereof are
evil. Go ye up unto the feast. I go not up
yet unto the feast, for my time is not yet full
come." They would have him seize upon the
opportunity of the approaching feast to show
himself to the world, to win the world's favor
and applause. This was their notion of human
life. The stage upon which men play their
parts here was in their eyes but as a mixed
array of changes and chances upon which the

52 Christ and his Brethren.

keen eye of selfishness should be always fixed,
read)' to grasp and make the most of them for
purposes of personal aggrandizement. For
sueh as they were the time was always ready.
They had no other reckoning to make — no
other star to steer by — than simply to discern
when and how their selfish interests could be
best promoted, and what their hands thus found
to do, to do it with all their might. The world
could not hate them, for they were of the world,
and the world loveth its own. Let them court
its favor, let them seek its pleasures, its honors,
its profits, and the world would be pleased
with the homage that was offered it, and if
they but succeeded, they might count upon its
applause, for men would praise them when
they did well for themselves.* It was not so
with Jesus, but utterly and diametrically the
reverse. His was no life either of random
impulses, of fitful accident, or of regulated self-
eeeking. The world he lived in was to him no
antechamber, with doors of aggrandizement
here and there around, for whose opening he
was greedily to watch, that he might go in
speedily and seize the prizes that lay beyond,

* Psalm xlix. 18.

Christ and his Brethren. 53

before others grasped them. It was the place
into which the Father h^d sent him to do there
that Father's business, to finish the work there
given him to do. And in the doing of that
work there is to be no heat, no hurry, no im-
patience with him. The time, the hour for
each act and deed was already settled in the
purposes and ordinances • of the Father. And
the Father's time, the Father's hour were his,
for which he was always ready calmly and pa-
tiently to wait. The world's hatred he counted
on — he was prepared for. He knew what
awaited him at Jerusalem. He knew what the
hatred cherished against him there would
finally and ere long effect ; but he must not
prematurely expose himself to it, nor suffer it
to hasten by a single day the great decease he
was to accomplish at Jerusalem. His time
was coming — the time of his manifestation to
Israel — -of his showing forth to the world — a
very different kind of manifestation from that
of which his brethren were dreaming. But
it was not yet fully come, and therefore he did
not mean to go up to Jerusalem and openly to
take part from the beginning as one of its cel-
ebrators in this approaching Feast of Taber-
nacles. This, in ways which we can easily

64 Cheist akd his Bretheen.

conjecture, but are not at liberty dogmatically
to assert, would have interfered with the orderly
evolution of the great event in which his earthly
ministry was to close. But the time was fixed
— that feast was drawing on — when his hour
would come, and then it would be seen how
the Son would glorify the Father and the
Father be glorified in the Son.

And now let us remember that the sharp
and vivid contrast drawn here by our Saviour's
own truthful hand — between himself and his
brethren according to the flesh — is the very
same that he has taught us to draw between all
his true disciples and the world. Let us listen
to the description he gave of his own in that
sublime intercessory prayer offered up on the
eve of his agony, in that supper chamber in
which the first communion was celebrated :
" They are not of the world, even as I am not
of the world." The "Father did not need to
know for whom his Son was then interceding.
The Father did not need to have any descrip-
tion of their character given to him. Yet
twice in that prayer did Jesus say of his true
followers thus: "They are not of the world,
even as I am not of the world." To know and
and feel and act as he did • under the deep

Cheist and his Beetheen. 55

abiding impression that, low as our lives are
compared with his — small and insignificant as
the ends are that any of us can accomplish —
yet that our times, our ways, our doings, are
all ordered by heavenly wisdom for heavenly
ends ; that the tangled threads of our destiny
are held by a Father's hand, to be woven into
such patterns as to him seems best ; by the
cross of our Redeemer — by the redemption
that was by it wrought out for us — by the
great example of self-sacrifice that was in it
exhibited — by the love of him who died that
he might live, to have the world crucified unto
us, and we crucified to the world ; — to have
the same mind in us that was in him who came
not to be ministered unto but to minister, who,
though he was so rich, for our sakes became
so poor, that we through his poverty might be
rich : — this would be to realize the description
that our Lord has left behind him of what all
his true disciples ought to be, and in some mea-
sure are. As we take up and apply the test it
supplies, how deeply may we all humble our-
selves before him — under the consciousness of
how slightly, how partially, if at all, the de-
scription is true of us !

IV.

CHRIST AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.*

GREAT national benefits, civil, social, and
religious, were conferred upon the Jews
by the ordinance that three times each year
the whole adult population of the country
should assemble at Jerusalem. The finest
seasons of the year, spring and autumn, were
fixed on for these gatherings of the people.
The journeyings at such seasons of friends and
neighbors, in bands of happy fellowship, must
have been healthful and exhilarating. Separ-
ated as it was into clans or tribes, the frequent
reunion of the entire community must have
served to counteract and subdue any jealousies
or divisions that might otherwise have arisen.
The meeting together as children of a common
progenitor, living under the same laws, heirs of
the same promises, worshippers of the same

* John vii. 11-52.

The Feast op Tabernacles. 57

God, must not only have cultivated the spirit
of brotherhood and nationality, but have
strengthened their faith and guarded from the
encroachments of idolatry the worship of the
country. Among the lesser advantages that
these periodic assemblages brought along with
them, they afforded admirable opportunities for
the expression and interchange of the senti-
ments of the people on every subject that par-
ticularly interested them : what in our times
the press and public meetings do, they did for
the Jews. So far as we know, no nation of
antiquity had such full and frequent means of
testing and indicating the state of public feel-
ing. Whatever topic had been engrossing the
thoughts of the community would be sure
to be the subject of general conversation in
the capital the next time that the tribes as-
sembled in Jerusalem. Remembering how
fickle public feeling is, how difficult it is to
fix it and keep it concentrated upon one sub-
ject for any considerable period, we may be
certain that it was a subject singularly in-
teresting— one which had taken a general and
very strong hold of the public mind, that for a
year and a half, during five successive festivals,

68 Christ at the

came up ever fresh upon the lips of the con-
gregated thousands.

Yet it was so as to the appearance among
them of Jesus Christ. Eighteen months had
passed since he had been seen in Jerusalem,
yet no sooner has the Feast of Tabernacles
commenced than the Jews look everywhere
around for him, and say, " Where is he ?" The
absence of one man among so many thousands
might, we should think, have passed by unno-
ticed. The absence of this man is the subject
of general remark. The people generally speak
of him with bated breath, for it is well enough
known that he is no favorite with the great
men of the capital, and as they speak great
discord of opinion prevails. It gives us, how-
ever, a very good idea of the extent and
strength of the impression he had made upon
the entire population of the country, that at
this great annual gathering, and after so long
an absence, he is instantly the object of search,
and so generally the subject of convc rsation.
Even while they were thus speaking of him he
was on his way to Jerusalem. Travelling
alone, or but slenderly escorted, and choosing
an unfrequented route, so that no pre-intima-
tion of his approach might reach the city, he

Feast op Tabernacles. 59

arrives about the middle of the feast, and
throws off at once all attempt at concealment.
Passing, as we might think, from the extreme
of caution to the extreme of daring, he plants
himself among the crowd in the Temple courts,
and addresses them as one only of the oldest
and most learned of the Rabbis might have
ventured to do. Some of the rulers are there,
but the suddenness of his appearance, the bold-
ness of the step he takes, the manner of his
speech, make them for the time forget their
purpose. They can't but listen like the rest,
but they won't give heed to the things about
the divine kingdom that he is proclaiming.
What strikes them most, and excites their won-
der, is that he speaks so well, quotes the Scrip-
tures, and shows himself so accurately ac-
quainted with the law. "How knoweth this
man letters," they say of him, "having never
learned?" They would turn the thoughts of
the people from what Jesus was saying to the
consideration of his title and qualification to
address them so. "Who is this ? in what school
was he trained ? at the feet of which of our
great Rabbis did he sit ? by what authority
does he assume this office ? Questions very
natural for men full of all the proud and exclii'

60 Christ at the

sive spirit of officialism to put ; questions, by
the very putting of which they would lower
him in the estimation of the multitude and try
to strip his teaching of its power. They give
to Jesus the opportunity of declaring, " My
doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me." ' I
am not addressing you either as a self-taught
man, or one brought up in any of our schools.
I am not addressing to you truths that I was
taught by others, or have myself elaborated.
Think not of me, who or what I am ; think of
what I teach, receive it as coming, not from me,
but from him who sent me. You ask about
my credentials ; you would like to know what
right I have to become a teacher of the peo-
ple. There is a far simpler and better way of
coming to a just conclusion about my teaching
than the one that you are pointing to, and,
happily, it is one that lies open unto all. If
any man is truly willing to do the divine will ;
if he wants to know wmat that will is in order
that he may do it ; if that, in listening to my
teaching, be his simple, earnest aim, he shall
know of the doctrine that I am teaching,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of
myself. No amount of native talent, no extent
of school learning of any kind, will compensate

Feast op Tabernacles. 61

for the want of a pure and honest purpose.
But if such a purpose be cherished, you shall
see its end gained ; if your eye be single, your
whole body shall be full of light.' And still
the saying of our Lord holds good, that in the
search of truth, in the preserving us from error,
in the guiding of us to right judgments about
himself and his doctrine, the heart has more to
do with the matter than the head — the willing-
ness to do telling upon the capacity to know
and to believe. Jesus asks that he himself be
judged by this principle and upon this rule.
What, in teaching, was his aim ? Was it to
display his talent, to win a reputation, to have
his ideas adopted as being his ? — was it to
please himself, to show forth his own glory ?
How boldly does he challenge these critical
observers to detect in him any symptom of
self-seeking ! With what a serene conscious-
ness of the entire absence in himself of that
element from which no other human heart was
ever wholly free, does he say of himself, " He
that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory :
but he that seeketh his glory that sent him,
the same is true, and no unrighteousness is in
him."

So much is said by Jesus to encourage all

62 Christ at the

truly desirous to know about him ; so much to
vindicate himself against the adverse judgment
of the rulers ; but how does all this apply to
them ? Have they the willingness to do ? have
they the purity and the unselfishness of pur-
pose ? This feast of tabernacles was the one
peculiarly associated with the reading of the
law. "And Moses commanded them, saying,
At the end of every seven years, in the feast
of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to ap-
pear before the Lord thy God in the place
which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law
before all Israel in their hearing, that they may
hear, and that they may learn, and fear the
Lord your God, and observe to do all the
words of this law."* It is in presence of the
very men whose duty it was to carry out this
ordinance, that Jesus is now standing. From
the first day they hated him, and from the
time, now eighteen months ago, that he had
cured the paralytic, breaking, as they thought,
the Sabbath, and said that God was his father,
making himself equal with God, they had re-
solved to kill him. This was the way — by
cherishing hatred and the secret intent to mur-

* Deut. xxxi. 10-12.

Feast of Tabeenacles. 63

der — that they were dealing with the law.
Rolling their adverse judgment of him back
upon themselves, and dragging out to light the
purpose that in the meantime they would have
kept concealed, Jesus said, "Did not Moses
give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth
the law ? Why go ye about to kill me ?"
Those to whom that question is more immedi-
ately addressed have no answer to give to it ;
but in the crowd are those who, ignorant of
the plot against the life of Jesus, yet sharing in
the rulers' contempt and hatred, say to him,
"' Thou hast a devil : who goeth about to kill
thee ?" Christ stops not to deal with such a
speech, but takes up at once what had furnished
so painful a weapon in the hands of the Phari-
sees against him. He refers to that one deed
still fresh in the minds of all those in Jerusa-
lem. The offence of that one act of his in cur-
ing the impotent man on a Sabbath-day, had
been made to overshadow all his other acts, to
overbear all his other claims to attention and
regard. "I have done one work," he said,
" and ye all marvel," as if I thereby plainly
proved myself a breaker of the Sabbath law.
Formerly, before the Sanhedrim, he had de-
fended himself against this charge of Sabbath-

64 Chbist AT THE

breaking by other and higher arguments.
Now addressing, as he does, the common peo-
ple, he takes an instance familiar to them all.
The Sabbath law runs thus: "Thou shalt do
no work on the seventh day." How was this
law to be interpreted ? If the circumcision of
a man on the seventh day was not a breach of
it, — and no one thought it was, — what was to
be said of the healing of a man upon that day ?
If ye on the Sabbath circumcise a man, and
the law of Moses is not broken, why " are ye
angry at me, because I have made a man every
whit whole on the Sabbath-day?" The ana-
logy was so perfect, and the question so plain,
that no reply was attempted. In the tempo-
rary silence that ensues, some of the citizens of
Jerusalem who were aware of the secret resolu-
tion of the Sanhedrim, struck with wonder at
what they now see and hear, cannot help say-
ing, "Is not this he whom they seek to kill?
But, lo, he speaketh boldly, and they say noth-
ing unto him. Do the rulers know indeed that
this is the very Christ?" We might imagine
the words to have come from those who were
ready themselves to see the very Christ in
Jesus, but though they share not their rulers'
persecuting spirit, these men have a prejudice

Feast of Tabernacles. 65

of their own. It had come to be a very gen-
eral opinion about this time in Judea, that the
Messiah was to have no common human origin.
no father or mother, was to be raised from the
dead beneath, or to come as an angel from the
heavens. His not meeting this requirement is
enough with these men to set aside the claims
of Jesus of Nazareth. "Howbeit," they say,
as men quite satisfied with the sureness of the
ground on which they go, " Howbeit we know
this man whence he is : but when Christ
cometh, no man knoweth whence he is. Then
cried Jesus in the temple as he taught," — such
an easy and self-satisfied way of disposing of
the whole question of his Messiahship, causing
him to lift up his voice in loud and strenuous
protest, — "Ye both know me, and ye know
whence I am ; and I am not come of myself,
but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not.
But I know him : for I am from him, and he
hath sent me." The old and oft-repeated truth
of his mission from the Father, coupled now
with such a strong assertion of his own know-
ledge and of these men's ignorance of who his
Father was, that they are so irritated as to be
disposed to proceed to violence ; but upon
them, as upon the rulers, there is a restraint:

6Q Christ at the

"No man laid hands on him, because his hour
was not yet come."

So impressed in his favor have many of the
onlookers now become, that they are bold
enough to say, " When Christ cometh, will he
do more miracles than these which this man
hath done ? " As Jesus had done no miracles
at this time in Jerusalem, the speakers obvi-
ously refer to what he had elsewhere wrought.
Their speech is immediately reported to the
Pharisees and Chief Priests sitting in council in
an adjacent court of the Temple, who, so soon
as they hear that the people are beginning to
speak openly in his favor, send officers to take
him. With obvious allusion to the errand on
which these men come, as if to tell them how
secure he felt, how sure he was that his com-
ings and his goings in the future would be all
of his own free will, — Jesus says, " Yet a little
while am I with you, and then I go to him
that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not
find me : and where I am, thither ye cannot
come ;" words very plain to us, but very dark
to those who have no other interpretation to
put upon them but that he may mean perhaps
to leave Judea and go to the dispersed among
the Gentiles. Little, however, as they were

Feast of Tabeknacles. 67

understood, there was such a tone of quiet, yet
sad assurance about them, that the high priests'
officers are arrested, and return to give this to
their employers as the reason why they had not
executed the order given them, "Never man
spake like this man."

So ended our Lord's first day of teaching in
the Temple, a day revealing on his part a wis-
dom, a courage, a serene, sublime, untroubled
trust which took his adversaries by surprise,
and held all their deadly purposes against him
in suspense — and on the part of the multitude
the strangest mixture of conflicting opinions
and sentiments, with which our Lord so dealt
as to win exemption from like interruptions
afterwards, and to secure for himself an unbro-
ken audience on the day when his last and
greatest words were spoken.

The Feast of Tabernacles was instituted to
commemorate the time when the Israelites had
dwelt in tents during their sojourn in the desert.
To bring the remembrance of those long years
of tent-life more vividly before them, the peo-
ple were enjoined, during the seven days that
it lasted, to leave their accustomed homes, and
to dwell in booths or huts made of gathered
branches of the palm, the pine, the myrtle, or

68 Christ at the

other trees of a like thick foliage. It must
have been a strange spectacle when, on the
da}7- before the feast, the inhabitants of Jerusa-
lem poured out from their dwellings, spread
themselves over the neighborhood, stripped the
groves of their leafiest branches, brought them
back to rear them into booths upon the tops of
their houses, along the leading streets, and in
some of the outer courts of the Temple. The
dull, square, stony aspect of the city suffered a
singular metamorphosis as these leafy structures
met everywhere the eye. It was the great Jew-
ish harvest-home — for this feast was celebrated
in autumn, after all the fruits of the earth had
been gathered in. It was within the Temple
that its joyous or thanksgiving character
especially developed itself. Morning and eve-
ning, day by day, during sacrifices more
crowded than those of any other of the great
festivals, the air was rent with the praises of
the rejoicing multitudes. At the time of the
libation of water, the voice of their glad
thanksgiving swelled up into its fullest and
most jubilant expression. Each morning a
vast procession formed itself around the little
fountain of Siloam down in the valley of the
Kedron. Out of its flowing waters the priests

Feast or Tabebnacles. 69

filled a large golden pitcher. Bearing it aloft,
they climbed the steep ascent of Moriali, passed
through the water-gate, up the broad stairs
and into the court of the Temple, in whose
centre the altar stood. Before this altar two
silver basins were planted, with holes beneath
to let the liquid poured into them flow down
into the subterranean reservoir beneath the
Temple, to run out thence into the Kedron,
and down into the Dead Sea. One priest stood
and poured the water he had brought up from
Siloam into one of these basins. Another
poured the contents of a like pitcher filled
with wine into the other. As they did so the
vast assemblage broke out into the most exult-
ing exclamations of joy. The trumpets of the
Temple sounded. In voice and upon instru-
ment the trained choristers put forth all their
skill and power. Led by them, many thou-
sand voices chanted the Great Hallel (the
Psalms from the 113th to the 118th), pausing
at the verses on which the chief emphasis was
placed to wave triumphantly in the air the
branches that they all bore, and make the wel-
kin ring with their rejoicing. This was the
happiest service in all the yearly ceremonial of
Judaism. "He," said the old Jewish proverb,

70 Christ at the

" who has never seen the rejoicing at the pour-
ing out of the waters of Siloam — has never seen
rejoicing all his life." All this rejoicing was
connected with that picturesque proceeding by
which the Lord's providing water for his peo-
ple in their desert wanderings was symbolized
and commemorated. And few, if any, have
doubted that it was with direct allusion to this
daily pouring out of the waters of Siloam, which
was so striking a feature of the festival, that on
the last, that great day of the feast, Jesus
stood and cried, " If any man thirst, let him
come unto me and drink." "Your forefathers
thirsted in the wilderness, and I smote the rock
for them, so that the waters flowed forth. I
made a way for them in the wilderness, and
gave rivers in the desert to give drink to my
people — my chosen. But of what was that
thirst of theirs, and the manner in which I met
it, an emblem? Did not Isaiah tell you, when
in my name he spake, saying, " I will pour
water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon
the dry ground. I will pour my Spirit upon
thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.
When the poor and needy seek water, and
there is none, and their tongue faileth for
thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of

Feast of Tabernacles. 71

Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers
in high places, and fountains in the midst of
the valleys. I will make the wilderness a pool
of water, and the dry land springs of water ?"
And now I am here to fulfil in person all the
promises that I made by the lips of my servant
Isaiah, and I gather them up and condense
them in the invitation — "If any man thirst let
him come unto me and drink."

"If any man thirst!" Ah! the Saviour
knew it of these rejoicing Israelites, that glad
and grateful as they were for the land that
they had entered into out of the wilderness —
no dry and thirsty land, but one of springs
and of rivers, of the early and the latter rain —
there was a thirst that none of its fountains
could quench, a hunger that none of its fruit-
age could satisfy. And he- knows it of us, and
of all men, that a like deep inward thirst dries
up our spirit, a like deep inward hunger is ever
gnawing at our heart. Are there no desires,
and longings, and aspirations in these souls of
ours that nothing earthly can meet and satisfy ?
Not money, not honor, not power, not pleas-
ure, not anything nor everything this world
holds out — they do not, cannot fill our hearts
— they do not, cannot quench that thirst thai

72 Christ at the

burns within. Can any one tell us where we
may carry this great thirst and get it fully
quenched? From the lips of the man Christ
Jesus the answer, comes. He speaks to the
crowds in the Temple of Jerusalem, but his
words are not for them alone — they have been
given to the broad heavens, to be borne wide
over ah the earth, and down through all its
generations : "If any man thirst, let him come
unto me and drink." Thirsty we know we are,
and thirsty shall remain till we hear these gra-
cious words, and hearing come, and coming
drink, and drinking get the want supplied. Yes,
we believe — Lord, help our unbelief — that
there is safety, peace, rest, refreshment, joy for
these weary aching hearts in Thee — the well-
spring of our eternal life.

" He that believeth in me, as the scripture
saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living
waters." Below the spot on which Jesus stood
when speaking in the courts of the Temple,
there lay vast subterranean vaults, whose sin-
gular recesses have only recently been explored.
Descending into them, you get a glimpse, by
help of dimly burning tapers, of a vast cistern
below the site of the ancient temple. Whether
this large reservoir be filled wholly from with-

Feast of Tabeenacles. 73

out, or has a spring of living waters supplying
it from below, remains to be ascertained.
Enough, however, has been discovered to stamp
with truth the ancient Jewish stories about the
great cistern, " whose compass was as the sea,"
and about the unfailing waters of the Temple.
Nor can we any longer doubt that it was to
these subterranean supplies of water that the
prophet Joel alluded when he said, " It shall
come to pass in that day that a fountain shall
come forth out of the house of the Lord, and
shall water the valley of Shittim ;" that the
prophet Zechariah alluded to when he said, "It
shall be in that day that living waters shall go
out from Jerusalem, half of them turned toward
the former sea, and half of them toward the
hinder ; " that still more pointedly the prophet
Ezekiel alluded to when he said, "Afterward
he brought me again into the door of the house,
and behold waters issued out from under the
threshold of the house eastward, and the wa-
ters came down from under the right side of
the house, at the south side of the altar/' And
as little can we doubt that Jesus had these very
scriptures in his thoughts and that cavity be-
neath his feet in his eye when he said, " He
that believeth in me, as the scripture saith, out

74 Christ at Feast of Tabernacles.

of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters."
'He that believeth shall not barely and alone
have his own thirst assuaged, but I in him, by
nry Spirit given, moulding him into my own
likeness, shall turn him into a separate well-
head, from whose depths rivers of living water
shall flow forth to visit, gladden, fructify some
lesser or larger portion of the arid waste
around.' Let us know and remember then,
that Jesus, the divine assuager of the thirst
of human hearts, imparts the blessing to each
who comes to him, that he may go and impart
the blessing to others. He comforts us with a
sense of his presence, guidance, protection,
sympathy, that we may go and console others
with that same comfort wherewith we have
been comforted of him. He never gives that
we may selfishly hoard the treasure that we
get. That treasure, like the bread that was
broken for the thousands on the hillside of
Galilee, multiplies in the hand that takes it to
divide and to distribute.

V.

JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.*

JESUS was in the Treasury. It stood at the
north side of one of those large enclosures
called the Court of the Women, which lay out-
side the Temple properly so calbd, and in
which, on all the great annual festivals, crowds
were wont daily to assemble. In the centre
of this court, at the Feast of Tabernacles, two
tall stands were placed, each supporting four
large branching candelabra. As at the time
of morning sacrifice the procession wound its
way up from the fountain of Siloam, and the
water was poured out from the golden pitcher
to remind the people of the supply of water
that had been made for their forefathers dur-
ing the desert wanderings ; so after the even-
ing sacrifice all the lights in these candelabra
were kindled, the flame broad and brilliant
enough to illuminate the whole city, to remind

* John viii. 12-5\f.

76 Jesus the Light of the Would.

the people of the pillar of light by which their
marchings through the wilderness were guided.
And still freer and heartier than the morning
jubilations which attended on the libation of
the water, were the evening ones which accom-
panied the kindling of the lights. It was with
allusion to the one ceremony that Jesus said,
" If any man thirst let him come unto me and
drink." It was with allusion to the other, of
which both he and those around him were re-
minded by the stately chandeliers which stood
at the time before their eyes, that he said, "I
am the light of the world, he that folio weth
me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life." In uttering both these say-
ings, Jesus placed himself in a singular and
elevated relationship to the whole human fam-
ily. In the one he invited the entire multitude
of human thirsters to come to him to have
their thirst assuaged. In the other he claimed
to be the one central source of light and life to
the whole world. Is it surprising that as they
looked at him, and heard him speaking in this
way, and thought of who and what, according
to their reckoning, he was, the Jews should
have seen egotism and arrogance in his words ?
There was in truth the very utmost pitch of

Jesus the Light of the World. 77

such arrogance and egotism in them, had the
speaker been such as they deemed him, a man
like themselves. But one of his very objects
in speaking so was to convince them and us
that he was not such — that he stood towards
the human family in quite other relationship
from that in which any single member of it
could stand to all the rest — that besides his
connection with it he had another and higher
connection, that with his Father in heaven,
which entitled him to speak and act in a way
peculiar to himself. By word and deed, again
and again repeated, Jesus had sought in vain
to convey into the minds of these Jews an idea
of how singular that connection was. He tries
now once again, and once again he fails. In-
stead of their asking ; Who is this that offers
to quench all human thirst, and who proclaims
himself to be the light of the world V saying to
themselves in reply, ' He must be more than
human, he must be divine — for who but One
could claim such a prerogative and power ?:
they listen only to find something to object to,
and grasping greedily at what lay upon the
very surface of the sayings, they say to him.
"Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record if
not true " Perhaps they had our Lord's owi

78 Jesus the Light of the World.

words on the occasion of the former visit to Jeru-
salem on their memory : " If I bear witness of
myself, my witness is not true." He was speak-
ing then of a solitary unsupported testimony,
— a testimony imagined to be borne by him-
self, to himself, and for himself, as one seeking
to advance his own interests, promote his own
glory. Such a testimony, had he borne it, he
had then said would be altogether untrustwor-
thy. His answer now to those who would taunt
him at once with egotism and inconsistency is,
" Though I bear record of myself, yet my re-
cord is true : for I know whence I came, and
whither I go." ' Had I not known that I came
forth from the Father, am going back to the
Father, that I am here only as his representa-
tive and revealer, — did the consciousness of
full, clear, constant union with him not fill my
spirit, — I would not, could not speak as I now
do. But I know the Father even as I am known
by him ; he works, and I work with him ; what-
soever things he doeth I do likewise. It is out
of the«depth of the consciousness of my union
with him that I speak, and what man know-
eth the things of a man save the spirit of man
that is in him, and however else are you to
know what can alone be known by my reveal-

Jesus the Light of the World. 79

ing it if I do not speak of myself, or do not
speak as he only can who stands in the rela-
tionship in which I do to the Father.

'But "ye cannot tell whence 1 come and
whither I go." You never gave yourselves
any trouble to find it out. You never opened
mind or heart to the evidence that I laid before
you. What early alienated you from me was
that I came not accredited as you would have
desired, submitted no proofs of my heavenly
calling to }ou for your approval, made no obei-
sance to you on entering on my career, came
not up here to seek instruction at your hands,
asked not from you any liberty to act as a
scribe, a teacher of the law — instead of this,
claimed at once this Temple as my Father's
house, condemned the way in which you were
suffering its sacred precincts to be defiled, and
have ever since, in all that I have said and
done, been lifting up a constant, loud, and
strenuous protest against you and your ways.
You sit now in judgment upon me — you con-
demn me. You say that I am bearing record
of myself, and that my record in not true, but
" ye judge after the flesh.'' You have allowed
human prejudice, human passion, to fashion
your judgment. I so judge no man. It was

80 Jesus the Light of the Woilld.

not to judge that I came into this world. I
came not to condemn, but to save it. And yet
if I judge, as in one sense I must, and am even
now about to do, my judgment is true, for I
am not alone, but I and the Father that sent
me judge, as we do. everything, together.
Your own very law declares, "that the testi-
mony of two men is true." I am one that
bear witness of myself, and the Father that
sent me beareth witness of me.'

As if they wished this second witness to be
produced, they say to him contemptuously,
"Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye
neither know me, nor my Father." ' You
think that you know me, you pride yourselves
in not being deceived in me as the poor igno-
rant multitude is — my earthly pedigree as be-
lieved in by you satisfies you as to my charac-
ter and claims. You can scarcely, after all
that I have said, have failed to perceive whom
I meant when I was speaking of my Father.
Him, too, you think you know ; you pride
yourselves on your superior acquaintance with
him ; you present yourselves to the people as
the wisest and best expounders of his will and
law. But "ye neither know me nor my
Father ;" for to know the one is to know the

Jesus the Light of the Woeld. 81

other — to remain ignorant of the one is to re-
main ignorant of the other. It is your want
of all true knowledge of me that keeps you
from knowing God. It is the want of all true
knowledge of God that keeps you from know-
ing me. Had you known me, you should have
known him ; had you known him, you should
have known me."

So fared it with our Lord's declaration that
he was the Light of the world as it was at first
spoken in the temple ; so ended the first brief
colloquy with the Jews to which its utterance
gave birth. There was one, however, of its first
hearers upon whom it made a very different
impression from that it made on the rulers of
the Jews, who treasured it up in his heart,
who saw ever as his Master's life evolved itself
before him, more and more evidence of its truth
whose spirit was afterwards enlightened to take
in a truer, larger idea of the place and function
of his Lord in the spiritual kingdom than has
ever, perhaps, been given to another of the
children of men, who, on this account, was
chosen of the Lord to set them forth in his
Gospel and in his • Epistles, and who has given
to us this explanation of the words of his Mas-
ter : "In the beginning was the Word, and the

82 Jesus the Light of the Woeld.

Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God. All
things were made by him ; and without him
was not anything made that was made. In
him was life ; and the life was the light of men.
And the light shineth in darkness ; and the dark-
ness comprehended it not." John " came for a
witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all
men through him might believe. He was not
that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that
Light. That was the true Light, which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world." " And
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us
(and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the
only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and
truth." " That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with
our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our
hands have handled, of the Word of life (for
the life was manifested,) and we have seen it,
and bear witness, and show unto you that eter-
nal life which was with the Father, and was
manifested unto us." " This is the true God
and eternal life." Such is the description John
has left us of him who spiritually is the sun of
this dark world, the central source of all its life
and light. The life and light of the soul lie in

Jesus the Light of the "World. 83

the love of its Creator, — in likeness to him,
communion with him, — in free, glad service
rendered, the joy of his approval felt. Freshly,
fully was life and light enjoyed by man in the
days of his innocence, — the light of God's gra-
cious presence shone upon his soul and glad-
dened all his heart. Made in his Maker's
image, he walked confidingly, rejoicingly, in
the light of his countenance, reflecting in his
own peaceful, loving, holy, happy spirit as
much as such mirror could of the glory of his
Creator. He disobeyed and died ; the light
went out ; at one stride came the dark. But
the gloom of that darkness, the stillness of that
death, were not suffered to prevail. From the
beginning life and light have gone forth from
Christ ; all the spiritual animation that this
world anywhere has witnessed, all the spiritual
light by which its darkness has been alleviated,
spring from him. The great Son of Pughteous-
ness, indeed., seemed long of rising. It was a
time of moon and stars and morning twilight,
till he came. But at last he arose with healing
in his beams. And now it is by coming unto
him that death is turned into life, and darkness
into light. He that hath him hath life, he that

84 Jesus the Light of the World.

followeth him walketh not in darkness, but has
the light of life.

The short colloquy betwixt Christ and the
Pharisees, consequent upon his announcement
of himself as the light of the world, ended in
their lips being for the moment closed. The
silence that ensued was speedily broken by our
Lord's repeating what he had said before about
his going away — going where they could not
follow. The speech had formerly excited only
wonder, and they had said among themselves,
" Will he go unto the dispersed among the
Gentiles V Now their passion against him has
so risen that it excites contempt, and they say
openly, not indeed to him, but of him, " Will he
kill himself? That would indeed be to go where
we could not follow. Perhaps that may be what
he means." The drawing of such distinction
between themselves and him gives to Jesus the
opportunity of setting forth the real and radical
difference that there was between them. The
portraiture of their character and pedigree
which, with truthful and unsparing hand, he
proceeded to fill up, amid many rude breaks
and scornful interruptions on their part, we
shall not minutely scrutinize. One or two
things only about the manner of our Lord's

Jesus the Light of the Would. 85

treatment of his adversaries in this word-battle
with them, let us note.

He does not say explicitly that he is the
Christ. His questioners were well aware what
kind of person their Messiah was generally ex-
pected to be, how different from all that Jesus
was. They would provoke him to make a
claim which they knew would be generally dis-
allowed. He will not do it. When they say,
11 Who art thou ?" he contents himself by say-
ing, "I am essentially or radically that which
I speak, my sayings reveal myself, and tell
who and what I am." In this, as in so many
other instances of his dealing with those opposed
to him at Jerusalem, his sayings were confined
to assertions or revelations, not of his Messiah
ship, but of his unity of nature, will, and pur-
pose with the Father. This was the great
stumbling-block that the Jews found ever and
anon flung down before them. That in all
which Jesus was and said and did he was to be
taken as revealing the character and express-
ing the will of God, was what they never could
allow, and the more that the idea of a connex-
ion between him and God approaching to ab-
solute identification was pressed upon them,
the more they resented and rejected it. But

86 Jesus the Light of the World.

why ? Jesus himself told them. Their unbe-
lief, he constantly asserted, sprung from a mor-
ally impure source ; from an unwillingness to
come into such living contact with the Father .
from their dislike to the purity, the benevo-
lence, the godliness that were in him as in the
Father. When driven from the position they
first assumed as children of Abraham, they
claimed a still higher paternity, and said, "We
have one Father, even God." Our Lord's re-
ply was, " If God were your Father, ye would
love me, for I proceeded forth and came from
God ; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Why do ye not understand my speech ? even
because ye cannot hear my word."

They wore a mask ; behind that mask they
hid a malicious disposition, and so long as de-
ceitfulness and malignity ruled their spirit and
regulated their lives, children of Abraham,
children of God, they were not, could not be.
They might boast what other parentage they
pleased, but their works proclaimed that they
were none other than the children of him who
was a liar and a murderer from the beginning.
" Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts
of your father ye will do." Very plain lan-
guage, and very severe — not language for man

Jesus the Light of the "World. 87

to use to man — suitable alone for him who
knew what was in man, who came as its light
into the world, and discharged one of his offices
as such in laying bare the hidden corruption
with which he came into contact, for "all
things that are reproved are manifest by the
light, for whatsoever doth make manifest is
light."

" But as he spake these words many believed
on him," and for them, amid all his rebukes of
his enemies, this was his word of encourage-
ment, that if they continued in his word, if they
but followed faithfully the light that shone m
him, they should know the truth, know him
who was the truth, and in him, and by that
truth, they should be made free. These Jews
imagined that simply as the children of Abra-
ham they were free. So fondly did they cling
to this idea that often as the yoke of the
stranger had been on them they were ready
proudly to say, " We were never in bondage
to any man." Notwithstanding this they were
slaves — slaves to sin and Satan. In one sense
they were in God's house, numbered outwardly
as members of its household ; but being actu-
ally such slaves, in that house they could not
abide forever. But if he who was not a ser-

88 Jesus the Light of the World.

vant in the house of another, but an heir in
his own house — his Father's house — if he made
his followers free, then were they free indeed.
And into what a glorious liberty should they
thus be introduced ! — freedom from the Law,
its curse and condemnation ; freedom from the
yoke of Jewish and all other ceremonialism ;
freedom from the fear of guilt and the bondage
of corruption ; freedom to serve God willingly
and lovingly, — to be all, do all, suffer all which
his will requires, — this was the liberty where-
with Christ was ready to make free. This
freedom was to be tasted but in imperfect
measure by any here on earth, for still onward
to the end the old. tyrant whose subjects they
had been would be making his presence and
power felt ; still onward to the end, while the
mind was serving the law of God, a law would
be in the members warring against the law
of the mind. But the hour of a final and
complete emancipation was to come at death.
Death ! it looked to nature like the stop-
page of all life, the breaking of all ties, the
quenching of all freedom and all joy. Not
such was it to be to him who shared the life
that Jesus breathes into the soul. To him it
was to be rather light than darkness, rather

Jesus the Light of the "Woeld. 89

life than death, the scattering of every cloud,
the breaking of every fetter, the deliverance
from every foe, the setting the spirit absolutely
and forever free to soar with unchecked, un-
shadowed wing, up to the fountain-head of all
life and blessedness, to bask in the sunshine
forever. " Verily, verily, if a man keep my
sayings, he shall never see death."

But now let us look a moment at the special
testimonies to his own person and character
which, upon this occasion, and in the course
of these rough conflicts with scornful and con-
temptuous opponents, Jesus bore. Light is its
own revealer. The sun can be seen alone in
the beams that he himself sends forth. So is
it with him who is the light of the world. It
is in the light of his own revelation of himself
that we can see Jesus as he is. And what, as
seen in the beams that he here sheds forth,
does he appear ? Two features of his charac-
ter stand prominently displayed : his sinless
holiness, his pre-existence and divine dignity
In proof of the stainless purity of his nature
and his life, Jesus when here on earth made a
threefold appeal. He appealed to earth, to
hell, to heaven, and earth, hell, and heaven
each gave its answer back. Two of these

90 Jesus the Light of the "Would.

appeals you have in the passage that is now
before us. Jesus appealed to earth when,
looking round upon those men who with the
keen eye of jealousy and hatred had been
watching him from the beginning to see what
flaws they could detect in him, he calmly and
confidently said, ' Which of you convinceth
me of sin, of any sin, the slightest transgres-
sion ? And earth gave her answer when these
men stood speechless before him.

He appealed to hell — to that devil of whom
he spoke so plainly as the father of all liars
and all murderers, who would have accused
and maligned him had he dared. "The prince
of this world cometh and findeth nothing in
me " — nothing of his own, nothing that he can
claim, no falsehood, no malice, no selfishness,
no unholiness in me. And hell gave its answer
when the devil whom Christ's word of power
drove forth from his human habitation was
heard to say, " I know thee who thou art, the
Eoly One of God."

Again, our Saviour carried the appeal to
Heaven, and, standing in the presence of the
Great Searcher of all hearts, he said, in words
that had been blasphemous from any merely
human lips, "I do always those things that

Jesus the Light of the World. 91

please him." And thrice during his mortal
career the heavens opened above his head,
and the voice of the Father was heard pro-
claiming, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I
am well pleased.'7

What shall we think or say of him who
claimed such perfect immunity from sin — the
entire absence of anything that could draw
down upon it the Divine displeasure, the full
presence of all that could draw down upon it
the Divine approval. Was he who knew
others so well, ignorant of himself, or, con-
scious of transgression, did lie yet deny it ?
Ignorant beyond other men, a hypocrite worse
than those whom he charged with hypocrisy,
must Jesus Christ have been, if, in speaking of
his sinlessness as he did. his speech was not
the free and natural expression of a self-con-
sciousness of perfect purity, truth, and holiness
of heart and life. In presence of one realizing
such unstained perfection, who never once in
thought or word or deed swerved from the
right, the true, the good, the holy, how hum-
bled should we be under the consciousness of
how different it is with us, and yet with that
sense of humiliation should not the elevating,
ennobling thought come in, that he in whom

92 Jesus the Light or the Would.

the sublime idea of a sinless perfection stands
embodied, was no other than our Lord and
Saviour, who came to show us to what a height
this weak and sinful humanity of ours could
be raised, who became partaker of our nature
that we through him might become partakers
of the Divine, and of whom we know that
when he shall appear we shall be like him,
when we shall see him as he is.

" Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my
day, and he saw it, and was glad.'-' Christ's
day was no other than that of his manifesta-
tion in the flesh. Abraham rejoiced that he
should see that day, and lived his earthly life
cheered by the animating prospect. And he
saw it, as Moses and Elijah did, for he was one
of those who, in Christ's sense of the words,
had not tasted of death, of whom it was wit-
nessed that he liveth, to whom, in the realms
of departed spirits, the knowledge of the Re-
deemer's advent had been conveyed.

Jesus had said that Abraham had seen Iris
day. They twist his words as if he had said
that he had seen Abraham. "Thou art not
yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abra-
ham ?" The contemptuous query gives to our
Lord the opportunity of lifting the veil that

Jesus the Light of the World. 93

concealed his glory, and making the last, the
greatest revelation of himself : " Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Before Abraham was. I am."
Not simply "Before Abraham was, I was," not
simply a declaration of a being before Abraham,
but a taking to himself of the great, the incom-
municable name, carrying with it the assertion
of self-existence, of supreme divinity. So they
understood it, who instantly took up stones to
stone him as a blasphemer. And so let us un-
derstand it, not taking up stones to stone him,
but lifting up hearts and hands together to
crown him Lord of all.

vt.

THE CURE OF THE MAN BORN BLIND.'

WITHIN the court of the Temple, in
presence of the Pharisees and their
satellites, Jesus had said, " I am the light of
the world : he that folio weth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of
life." The saying, resented as egotistical and
arrogant, led on to that altercation which
ended in their taking up stones to cast at him,
and in his hiding himself in some mysterious
way and passing out of the Temple, "going
through the midst of them." At one of the
Temple gates, or by the roadside without, "as
Jesus passed by he saw a man which was
blind from his birth," — a well-known city beg-
gar, whom Jesus and his disciples may have
often passed in their way up to the Temple.
Now at the very time when we might have

* John ix.

The Cure of the Man Born Blind. 95

imagined him more than ordinarily desirous to
proceed in haste, in order to put himself be-
yond the reach of the exasperated men out of
whose hands he had just escaped, Jesus stops
to look compassionately upon this man. He
sees in him a tit subject for a work being done,
which in the lower sphere of man's physical
nature shall illustrate the truth which ne had
in vain been proclaiming in the treasury, that
he was the light of the world. As He stops,
his disciples gather round him and fix their
eyes also upon the man whose case has ar-
rested their Master's footsteps, and seems to
have absorbed his thoughts. But their thoughts
are not as his. They look, to think only of the
rarity and severity of the affliction under which
the man is laboring — to regard it as a judg-
ment of God, whereby some great sin was
punished — the man's own, it would be natural
to suppose it should be ; but then, the judg-
ment had come before any sin had been com-
mitted by him — he had been blind from his
birth. Could it be that the punishment had
preceded the offence ; or was this a case in
which the sins of the parents had been visited
on their child ? " Master," they say to Jesus
in their perplexity, "who did sin, this man or

96 The Cuke of tfe Man Born Blind.

his parents, that be was born blind ?" The
one thing that they had no doubt about, — and
in having no such doubt, were only sharing in
the sentiment of all the most devout of their
fellow-countrymen, — was that some signal sin
had been committed, upon which the signal
mark of God's displeasure had been stamped.
It was not as to the existence somewhere of
some exceeding fault that they were in the
least uncertain. Their only doubt was where
to lay it. It was the false but deep conviction
which lay beneath their question that Jesus
desired to expose and correct when he so
promptly and decisively replied, " Neither hath
this man sinned nor his parents," neither the
one nor the other has sinned so peculiarly that
the peculiar visitation of blindness from birth
has been visited on the transgression. Not
that Jesus meant to disconnect altogether
man's suffering from man's sins. Had he
meant to do so, he would not have said to the
paralytic whom he cured at the pool of Beth-
escla, " Go thy way, sin no more, lest a worse
thing come upon thee ;" but that he wanted,
by vigorous stroke, to lay the axe at the root
of a prevalent superstitious feeling which led to
erroneous and presumptuous readings of God's

The Cuke of the Man Born Blind. 97

providences, connecting particular sufferings
with particular sins, and arguing from the rel-
ative severity of the one to the relative mag-
nitude of the other.

Nor was this the only instance in which our
Saviour dealt in the same manner with the
same popular error. But a few weeks from
the time in which he spake in this way to his
disciples, Jesus was in Percea. There had
been a riot in Jerusalem — some petty prema-
ture outburst of that insurrectionary spirit
which was rife throughout Judea. Pilate had
let loose his soldiers on the mob. Some Gali-
leans who had taken part in the riot, or were
supposed to have done so — for the Galileans
were always in the front rank of any move-
ment of the kind — were slain — slain even while
engaged in the act of sacrificing, their blood
mingled with their sacrifices : an incident so
fitted to strike the public eye, to arouse the
public indignation, that the news of it traveled
rapidly through the country. It reached the
place where Christ was teaching. Some of his
hearers, struck perhaps by something that he
had said about the signs of the times and the
judgments that were impending, took occasion
publicly to tell him of it. Perhaps they hoped

98 The Cube of the Man Born Blind.

that the recital would draw out from him some
burning expressions of indignation, pointed
against the foreign yoke under which the coun-
try was groaning ; the deed done by the Ro-
man governor had been so gross an outrage up-
on their national religion, upon the sacredness
of the holy Temple. If the tellers of the tale
cherished any such expectation they were dis-
appointed. As upon all like occasions, when-
ever any purely political question was brought
before him, Christ evaded it. He never once
touched or alluded to that aspect of the story.
But there was another side of it upon which
he perceived that the thoughts of not a few of
his hearers were fastened. It was a terrible
fate that these slaughtered Galileans had met —
not only death by the Roman sword — but
death within the courts of the Temple — death
upon the very steps of the altar. There could
be but one opinion as to the deed of their mur-
derers— those rough Gentile soldiers of Pilate.
But the murdered, upon whom such a dreadful
doom had fallen, what was to be thought of
them? Christ's all-seeing eye perceived that
already in the breasts of many of those around
him, the leaven of that censorious, uncharitable,
superstitious spirit was working, which taught

The Cure of the Man Born Blind. 95

them to attach all extraordinary calamities to
extraordinary crimes. " Suppose ye," said Je-
sus, " that these Galileans were sinners above
all Galileans because they suffered such things ?
I tell you nay." To give his question and his
answer a still broader aspect — to take out of
them all that was peculiarly Galilean — he
quotes another striking and well-known occur-
rence that had recently happened near Jerusa-
lem— a calamity not inflicted by the hand of
man. " Or those eighteen," he adds, " upon
whom the tower in Siloam fell, think ye that
they were sinners above all men that dwelt in
Jerusalem ? I tell you nay." He does not
deny that either the slaughtered Galileans or
the crushed Jerusalemites were sinners. He
does not say that they did not deserve their
doom. He does not repudiate or run counter
to that strong instinct of the human conscience
which in all ages has taught it to trace suffer-
ing to sin. What he does repudiate and con-
demn is the application of that principle to
specific instances, by those who know so little,
as we do, of the Divine purposes and aims in
the separate events of life — making the tem-
poral infliction the measure of the guilt from
which it is supposed to spring. It is not a

100 The Cure of tee Man Born Blind.

wrong thing for the man himself whom some
sudden or peculiarly severe calamity overtakes,
to search and try himself before his Maker, to
see whether there has not been some secret sin
as yet unrepented and unforsaken, which may
have had a part in bringing the calamity upon
him. It was not a wrong thing in Joseph's
brethren, in the hour of their great distress in
Egypt, to remember their former conduct, and
to say, "We are verily guilty concerning our
brother, therefore is this distress come upon
us." It was not a wrong thing for the king of
Besek, when they cruelly mutilated him, cut-
ting off his thumbs and great toes, to say,
" Threescore and ten kings having their thumbs
and great toes cut off gathered their meat un-
der my table. As I have done, so God hath
requited me." But it was a wrong thing in
the inhabitants of Melita, when they saw the
viper fasten on Paul's hand, to think and say,
that " no doubt this man is a murderer, whom,
though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance
suffereth not to live." It was a wrong thing
in the widow of Zarephath, when her son fell
sick, to say to Elijah, "What have I to do
with thee, 0 thou man of God ? Art thou
come to call my sins to remembrance, and to

The Cuke of the Man Bokn Blind. 101

slay my son ?" It was a wrong thing for the
friends of Job to deal with their afflicted
brother as if his abounding misfortunes were so
many proofs of a like abounding iniquity. It
is a very wrong thing in any of us to presume
to interpret any single dealing of God with
ethers, particularly of a dark or adverse kind,
for all such dispensations of his providence have
a double character. They may be retributive,
or they may be simply disciplinary, corrective,
protective, purifying. They may come in
anger, or they may be sent in love. And
while as to ourselves it may be proper that
we should view them as bearing messages of
warning, we are not at liberty as to others to
attribute to them any other character than that
of being the chastenings of a wise and loving
Father.

" Neither hath this man sinned,, nor his
parents, but that the works of God should be
manifest in him." Those works — works of
mercy and almighty power — were given to
Christ to do, and here was an opportunity for
one of them being done. To pause thus by
the way, to occupy himself with the case of
this poor blind beggar, might seem a waste of
time, the more so that the purpose of his per-

102 The Cure of the Man Born Blind.

secutors to seize and to stone him had been sc
recently and so openly displayed. But that
very outbreak of their wrath foretold to Jesus
his approaching death — the close of his allotted
time of earthly labor; and so he says, "I
must work the works of him that sent me
while it is day ; the night cometh, when no
man can work. As long as I am in the world,
I am the light of the world." " I said so to
those proud and unbelieving men from whose
rough violence I have just escaped. I will
prove now the truth of what I said by bringing
the light physically, mentally, spiritually, to
this poor blind beggar."

All this time not a word is spoken by the
blind man himself. Whatever cries for help
he may have raised when he heard the foot-
steps of the approaching company, as they
stop before him he becomes silent. He hears
the question about his own sins and his parents'
sins put by strange Galilean tongues to one ad-
dressed evidently with the greatest respect.
He hears the one thus appealed to say, with an
authority that he wonders at, " Neither hath
this man sinned, nor his parents," — grateful
words to the poor man's ear. He may have
thought, in common with others, that he had

The Cuke of the Man Born Blind. 103

been signally marked as an object of the Divine
displeasure. The words that he now hears
may have helped to lift a load off his heart ;
already he may be more grateful to the speaker
of these few words than if he had cast the
largest money-gift into his bosom. But the
speaker goes further : he says that he had
been born blind " that the works of God snould
be made manifest in him." If it were not the
work of God's anger in the punishment of his
own or his father's sins, what other work could
it be ? And who can this be who is now be-
fore him, who speaks of what he is, and what
he does, and what he is about to do, with such
solemnity and self-assurance? Who can tell
us what new thoughts about himself and the
calamity that had befallen him, what new
thoughts about God and his purposes in thus
dealing with him, what wonderings as to who
this stranger can be that takes such an inter-
est in him, what flutterings of hope may have
passed through this poor man's spirit while the
brief conversation between Christ and his dis-
ciples was going on, and during that short and
silent interval which followed as Jesus "spat
on the ground and made clay of the spittle ?"
This we know, that when Christ approached

104 The Cube of the Mah Bokn Blind.

and laid his hand upon him, and anointed hia
eyes with that strange salve, and said to him,
while yet his sightless bails were covered with
what would have blinded for the time a man
who saw, " Go, wash in the pool of Siloam,"
he had become so impressed as quietly to sub-
mit to so singular an operation, and, without a
word of arguing or remonstrance, to obey the
order given, and to go off to the pool to wash.
It lay not far off, at the base of the hill on
which the Temple stood, up and around which
he had so often groped his way. He went and
washed, and lo a double miracle ! — the one
wrought within the eyeball, the other within
the mind — each wonderful even among the
wonders wrought by Christ. Within the same
compass there is no piece of dead or living
mechanism that we know of, so curious, so
complex, so full of nice adjustments, as the
human eye. It was the great Creator's office
to make that eye and plant it in its socket,
gifting it with all its varied powers of motion,
outward and inward, and guarding it against
all the injuries to which so delicate an instru-
ment is exposed. It was the Creator's will
that some fatal defect, or some fatal confusion
of its parts and membranes, should from the

The Cuee of the Man Boen Blind. 105

first have existed in the eyeball of this man.
And who but the Creator could it be that rec-
tified the defect or removed the confusion, be-
stowing at once upon the renovated organ the
full power of vision ? Such instant recon-
struction of a defective, or mutilated, or dis-
organized eye, though not in itself a greater,
appears to us a more surprising act of the
Divine power than the original creation of the
organ. You watch with admiration the oper-
ation of the man who, with a large choice of
means and materials, makes, and grinds, ahd
polishes, and adjusts the set of lenses of which
a telescope is composed. But let some accident
happen whereby all these lenses are broken
and crushed together in one mass of confusion,
what would you think of the man who could
out of such materials reconstruct the instru-
ment ? It was such a display of the Divine
power that was made when the man born
blind went and washed and saw.

But however perfect the eye be, it is simply
a transmitter of light, the outward organ by
which certain impressions are made upon the
optic nerves, by them to be convej^ed to the
brain, giving birth there to the sensations of
sight. But these sensations of themselves con-

106 The Cure of the Man Born Blind.

voy little or no knowledge of the outward world
till the observer's mind has learned to interpret
them as signs of the position, forms, sizes, and
distances of the outlying objects of the visible
creation. It is but slowly that an infant learns
this language of the eye. It requires the
putting forth of innumerable acts of memory,
and the acquiring by much practice a facility of
rapid interpretation. That the man born blind
should be able at once to use his eyes as we all
do, it was needed that this faculty should be be-
stowed on him at once, without any teaching
or training, and when we fully understand (as
it is somewhat difficult to do) what the powers
were which were thus instantly conveyed, the
mental will appear not less wonderful than the
material part of the miracle of our Lord — that
part of it too of which it is utterly impossible to
give any explanation but the one that there was
in it a direct and immediate putting forth of the
Divine power. The skillful hand of the couch-
er may open the eye that has been blind from
birth, but no human skill or power could con-
fer at once that faculty of using the eye as we
now do, acquired by us in the forgotten days
of our infancy. It may be left to the fanaticism
of unbelief to imagine that it was the clay and

The Cube of the Man Boen Blind. 107

the washing which restored his sight to the man
born blind, but no ingenuity of conception can
point us to the natural means by which the
gift of perfect vision could have been at once
conferred.

Yet of the fact we have the most convincing
proof. It was so patent and public that there
could be no mistake about it. It was subjected
to the most searching investigation — to all the
processes of a judicial inquiry. When one so
well known as this blind beggar, whom so many
had noticed on their way up to the Temple,
was seen walking among the other worship-
pers, seeing as well as any of them, the ques-
tion was on all sides repeated. "Is not this he
that sat and begged ?" Some said it was ;
others, distrusting their own sight, could only
say he was like him ; but he removed their
doubts by saying, " I am he." Then came the
question as to how his eyes were opened.
He^ told them. Somehow or other, he had
learned the name of his healer. " A man that
is called Jesus made clay and anointed mine
eyes, and said to me, Go to the pool of Siloan
and wash, and I went and washed, and I re-
ceived my sight." But Jesus had not yet been
seen by him ; he knew not where he was. it

108 The Cube of the Man Boen Blind.

was so very singular a thing this that had been
done — made more so by its having been done
upon a Sabbath-day — that some of those to
whom the tale was told would not be satisfied
till the man went with them to the Pharisees,
sitting in council in a side-chamber of the Tem-
ple. They put the same question to him the
others had done, as to how he had received his
Bight, and got the same reply. Even had Je-
sus cured him by a word, they would have re-
garded it as a breach of the Sabbath, but when
they hear of his making clay and putting it on
his eyes, and then sending him to lave it off in
the waters of Siloam — all servile work forbid-
den, as they taught — they seize at once upon
this circumstance, and say, " This man is not
of God. because he keepeth not the Sabbath-
day." The question now was not about the
cure, which seemed, in truth, admitted, but
about the character of the curer. Such instant
and peremptory condemnation of him as a Sab-
bath breaker roused a spirit of opposition even
in their own court. Joseph was there, or Nic-
odemus, or some one of a like sentiment, who
ventured, in opposition to the prevailing feel-
ing, to put the question, " How can a man that
is a sinner do such miracles V But they are

The Cuke of the Man Boen Blind. 109

overborne. The man himself, at least, who
is there before them, will not dare to defend
a deed which he sees that the majority of them
condemn. They turn to him and say, " What
saj^est thou of him that hath opened thine
eyes ?" They are mistaken. Without delay
or misgiving, he says at once, " He is a prophet."
They order him to withdraw. They are some-
what perplexed. They wish to keep in hand
the charge of Sabbath-breaking, but how can
they do so without admitting the miracle ? It
would serve all their purposes could they only
make it out that there had been some deception
or mistake as to the man's having been born
blind — the peculiar feature of the miracle that
had attracted to it such public notice. They
summon his parents, who have honesty enough
to acknowledge that the man is their son, and
that he was born blind, but as to how it is that
he now sees, they are too timid to say a word.
They know it had been resolved that if any
man confessed that Jesus was the Christ, he
was to be excommunicated — a sentence carry-
ing the gravest consequences, inflicting the
severest social penalties. But they have great
confidence in the sagacity of their son ; he is
quick-witted enough, they think, to extricate

110 The Cure of the Man Born Blind.

himself from the dilemma. "He is of age "
they say ; " ask him ; he shall speak for him-
self." He is sent for : appears again in their
presence, ignorant of what has transpired, of
what his parents, in their terror, may have said.
And now, as if their former judgment against
Jesus had been quite confirmed, and stood un-
questionable, they say to him, " Give God the
praise " — an ordinary Jewish form of adjura-
tion. "My son," said Joshua to Achan, "give
glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make
confession to him, and tell me now what thou
hast done." And so now these Pharisees to
this poor beggar. " My son, give God the
praise. We know, and do you confess, that
this man is a sinner." They are again at
fault. In blunt, plain speech, that tells suffi-
ciently that he will not believe that Jesus is a
sinner simply because they say it, he answers,
"Whether he be a sinner, I know not ; one
thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I
see." Balked in their first object to browbeat
and overawe him, they will try again whether
they can detect any inconsistency or contradic-
tion in his testimony, and so they ask him to
tell them over again how the thing had hap-
pened. Seeing through all the thin disguise

The Cuee of the Man Boen Blind. Hi

they are assuming in seeming to be so anxious to
get at the truth, he taunts them, saying, " I told
you before, and .ye did not hear ; wherefore
would you hear it again ? will ye also be his dis-
ciples ?'; No ambiguous confession of disciple-
ship on his part. So at least they took it who
replied, " Thou art his disciple ; we are Moses"
disciples. We know that God spake unto
Moses ; as for this fellow, we know not from
whence he is." Poor though he be, and alto-
gether at the mercy of the men before whom
he stands, the healed man cannot bear to hear
his healer spoken of in such contemptuous
terms. With a courage that ranks him as the
first of the great company of confessors, and
with a wisdom that raises him above all those
high-born and well-taught Pharisees, he says,
w Why, herein is a marvellous thing, that ye
know not from whence he is, and yet he hath
opened mine eyes. Now we know that God
heareth not sinners ; but if a man be a wor-
shipper of God, and doeth his will, him he
heareth. Since the world began was it not
heard that any man opened the eyes of on€
that was born blind. If this man were not of
God, he could do nothing." So terse, so pun-
gent, so unanswerable the speech, that passion

112 The Cuke of the Man Boen Blind.

now takes the place of argument, and the old
and vulgar weapon of authority is grasped and
used. Meanly casting his calamity in his teeth,
they say, " Thou wast altogether born in sin,
and dost thou teach us ?" And they cast him
out — excommunicated him on the spot.

Jesus hears of the wisdom and the fearless-
ness that he had displayed in the defence of
the character and doings of his healer, and of
the heavy doom that had in consequence been
visited on him, and throws himself across his
path. Meeting him by the way, he say: to
him, " Dost thou believe in the Son of God ?"
Up to this moment he had never seen the man
who had anointed his eyes with the clay and
bidden him to go and wash in the pool of Si-
loam. He might not by look alone have recog-
nized him, but the voice he never could forget.
As soon as that voice is heard, he knows who
the speaker is. Much he might have liked to
tell, and much to ask ; but all other questions
are lost in the one, that with such emphasis
the Saviour puts — " Dost thou believe in the
Son of God ?" He had heard of men of God,
prophets of God, the Christ of God : but the
Son of God — one claiming the same kind of
paternity in God that every true son claims in

The Cuke of the Man Born Blend. 113

his father — such a one he had never heard of.
"Who is he, Lord?'7 he asks, "that I might
believe in him? And Jesus said unto him,
Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that
talketh with thee." Never but once before
that we know of or can remember — never but
to the woman of Samaria — was so clear, so
direct, so personal a revelation of himself made
by Jesus Christ. In both — the woman by the
well-side, the blind beggar by the wayside —
Jesus found simplicity and candor, quickness
of intelligence, openness to evidence, readiness
to confess. Both followed the light already
given. Bothr before any special testimony to
his own character was borne by Jesus himself,
acknowledged him to be a prophet. Bo«th
thus stepped out far in advance of the great
mass of those around them- — in advance of
many who were reckoned as disciples of the
Lord. The man's, however, was the fuller and
firmer faith. It had a deeper foundation to
rest on. Jesus exhibited to the woman such a
miracle of knowledge as drew from her the ex-
clamation, " Sir, I perceive thou art a prophet."
Upon the man he wrought such a miracle of
power and love as begat within the deep con-
viction that he was a true worshipper of God

114 The Cuke of the Man Born Blind.

— a faithful doer of the Divine will — a man of
God — a prophet of God ; and to this convic-
tion he had adhered before the frowning rulers,
and in face of all that they could do against
him. He had risked all and lost much rather
than deny such faith as he had in Jesus. And
to him the fuller revelation was imparted.
Jesus only told the woman of Samaria that it
was Messiah — the Christ of God — who stood
before her. He told the man that it was the
Son of God who stood before him. How far
the discovery of his Sonship to God — his true
and proper divinity — went beyond that of his
Messiahship, we shall have occasion hereafter
to unfold. But see how instantaneous the
faith that follows the great and unexpected dis-
closure. " Who is he, Lord ?" the Son of God
of whom you speak ? "I that speak unto thee
am he. And he said, Lord, I believe, and he
worshipped him ;" worshipped him as few of
his immediate followers yet had done : wor-
shipped him as Thomas and the others did
when they had the great miracle of the resur-
rection and the sight of the risen Saviour to
originate and confirm their faith. What shall
we say of this quick faith and its accompany-
ing worship — evidences as they were of a fresh

The Cure of the Man Born Blind. 115

full tide of light poured into this man's mind ?
Shall we say that here another miracle was
wrought — an inward and spiritual one, great
and wonderful as that when, by the pool-side
of Siloam, he washed, those sightless eyeballs,
and as he washed, the clear, pure, bubbling
water showed itself — the first bright object
that met his opening vision — and he lifted
up his eyes and looked around, and the hills
of Zion and of Olivet, and the fair valley
of the Kedron, burst upon his astonished
gaze ? That perhaps were wrong, for great as
the work of God's Holy Spirit is in enlighten-
ing and quickening the human soul, it is not a
miraculous one, and should not be spoken of
as such. But, surely, of the two — the opening
of the bodily and the opening of the spiritual
vision — the latter was God's greater and higher
gift.

VII.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD.*

THE blind beggar of Jerusalem was healed.
How different the impression and effect of
this healing upon the man himself, on the one
side, and the Pharisees, his excommunicators, on
the other ! He a poor, uneducated, yet simple-
minded, simple-hearted man, grasping with so
firm a hold, and turning to such good account,
the knowledge that he had, and eager to have
more ; reaping, as the fruit of Christ's act of
mercy met in such a spirit, the unfolding by
our Lord himself of his highest character and
office : they, the guides and leaders of the peo-
ple, so well taught and so wise, unable to dis-
credit the miracle, yet seizing upon the circum-
stance that it was done upon the Sabbath, and
turning this into a reproach, their prejudices
fed and strengthened, their eyes growing

* Johnix. 39-41; x. 1-39.

The Good Shephekd. 117

more blinded, their hearts more hardened
against Christ. This contrast appears to have
struck the mind of our Lord himself. It was
in the Temple, the only place where he could
meet his fellow-men while under the ban of the
Sanhedrim, that the healed man met Jesus.
They may have been alone, or nearly so, when
Christ put the question, "Dost thou believe on
the Son of God?" and having got the answer
which showed what readiness there was to re-
ceive further light, made the great disclosure of
his Divinity. Soon, however, a number of the
Pharisees approach, attracted by the interview.
As he sees, compares, contrasts the two — the
man and them — he says, "For judgment am I
come into this world, that they which see
not" (as this poor blind beggar) "may see,
and that they which see " (as the Pharisees)
"might be made blind." The Pharisees are
not so blind as not to perceive the drift and
bearing of the speech. They mockingly inquire,
" Are we blind also ?" "If ye were blind," is
our Lord's reply — utterly blind, had no power
or faculty of vision, " }^e should have no sin:
but now ye say, We see." ' You think you
see ; you pride yourselves on seeing so much
better and so much further than others. Un-

118 The Good Shei'heed.

conscious of your existing blindness, you will
not come to me to have 3^our eyes opened : will
not submit to the humbling operation at my
hands : therefore your sin remaineth, abides,
and accumulates upon you. Here was a poor
stricken sheep, whom ye, claiming to be the
shepherds of the flock, have cast out from your
fold, whom I have sought and found. Let me
tell you who and what a true shepherd of God's
flock is. He is one that enters by the door into
the sheepfold, to whom the porter opens readily
the door, whose voice the sheep are quick to
recognize, who calleth his own sheep by name,
going before them and leading them out. He
is a stranger, a thief, a robber, and no true
shepherd of the sheep, who will not enter by
the door, but climbeth up some other way.'
Acute enough to perceive that this was said
concerning human shepherds generally, lead-
ers or pastors of the people : intended to dis-
tinguish the true among such from the false,
and that some allusion to themselves was in-
tended, Christ's hearers were yet at a loss to
know what the door could be of which he was
speaking, and who the thieves and robbers were.
Dropping, therefore, all generality and all am-
biguity, Jesus adds, " Verily, verily, I say un-

The Good Shepherd. 119

to you, I am the door of the sheep." ' I have
been, I am, I ever shall be, the one and only
door of entrance and of exit, both for shepherds
and for sheep. All that ever came before me,
without acknowledging me, independently of me,
setting me aside, yet pretending to be shep-
herds of the sheep — they are the thieves and
the robbers. I am the door ; by me, if any man
enter in, whether he claims to be a shepherd,
or numbers himself merely as one of the flock —
those who are shepherds as to others being still
sheep as to me — if any man so enter in, he
shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and
find pasture.'

This much being said of the door, the one
way of entrance into God's true fold, the image
of the door is dropped, and without circumlocu-
tion or reserve, Christ announces himself as the
Good Shepherd, and proceeds to describe his
character and work as such. ' I am the Good
Shepherd ; not simply a kind or loving shep-
herd, as opposed to such as are unkind or
harsh in their treatment of the flock, but I am
the one, the only one, in whom all the qualities
needful to constitute the true and faithful shep-
herd, meet and culminate in full and harmonious
perfection. I am the Good Shepherd, who has

120 The Good Shef-hekd.

already clone, who waits still to do, that for the
sheep which none other ever did or could do.'
On one or two of the qualities or characteris-
tics which Christ here claims for himself, as
wearing and executing the office, let us now
fix our thoughts.

I. He sets before us the minute personal
interest that he takes in each individual mem-
ber of his flock. " He calleth his own sheep by
name, and leadeth them out." The allusion
here is to the fact that Eastern shepherds did
give a separate name to each separate sheep, who
came in time to know it, and, on hearing it, to
follow at the shepherd's call. It is thus that,
when Isaiah would set forth the relation in which
the Great Creator stands to the starry host, he
represents him as leading them out at night as
a shepherd leadeth out his sheep. " Lift up
your eyes, and behold who hath created these
things ; that bringeth out their host by number:
he calleth them all by names." It is no mere
general knowledge, general care, that the Great
Creator possesseth and exercises. There is not
a single star in all that starry host unnoticed,
unguided, unnamed. The eye that seeth all, sees
each as distinctly as if it alone were before it.
The hand that guideth all, guides each as

The Good Shepherd. 121

carefully as if it alone had to be directed by it.
So is it with Jesus and the great multitude of his
redeemed. Singling each out of that vast com-
pany, he says, " I have redeemed thee : I have
called thee by thy name, thou art mine." " I have
graven thy name on the palms of my hands, to
be ever there before mine eye. To him that
overcometh will I give a white stone, and on the
stone a new name written, which no man know-
eth saving he who receiveth it." Individual
names are given to mark off individual objects,
to separate each, visibly and distinctly, from all
others of the same kind. A new island is discov-
ered, its discoverer gives to it its new name. A
new instrument is invented, its inventor gives to
it its new name. In that island, as distinguished
from all other islands, its discoverer takes ever
afterwards a special interest. In that instru-
ment, as different from all others, a like special
interest is taken by its inventor. Another jiu-
man spirit is redeemed to God : its Redeemer
gives to it its new name, and forever afterwards
in that spirit he takes a living, personal, peculiar
interest : bending over it continually with in-
finite tenderness, watching each doubt, each
fear, each trial, each temptation, each fall, each
rising again, each conflict, each victory, each

122 The Good Shepherd.

defeat, every movement, minute or momentous,
by which its progress is advanced or retarded,
watching each and all with a solicitude as special
and particular as if it were upon it that the ex-
clusive regards of his loving heart were fixed.
It was no vague, indefinite, indiscriminate
good will to all mankind that Jesus showed
when here on earth. A large part of the
narrative of his life and labors is occupied
with the details of his intercourse with individ-
uals, intended to set forth the special personal
interest in each of them that he took. Philip
brings Nathanael to him. Jesus says, " Before
that Philip called thee, when thou wast under
the fig-tree, I saw thee." "Go, call thy hus-
band, and come hither." " I have no husband,"
the woman of Samaria answers. Jesus says,
"Thou hast well said thou hast no husband, for
thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou
now hast is not thy husband ; in that saidst thou
truly." A lone, afflicted woman creeps furtive-
ly near to him, that she may touch but the hem
of his garment ; she is healed, but must not go
away imagining that she was unseen, unrecog-
nized. Zaccheus climbs up into the sycamore
expecting simply to get a sight of him as he
passes by. Christ comes up, stops before the

The Good Shephekd. 123

tree, looks up, and says, " Zaccheus, make haste
and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy
house." " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." "Si-
mon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you,
that he may sift you as wheat, but I have
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." Too
numerous to go on quoting thus were the man-
ifestations of personal and particular regard
shown by Jesus before his death. And when
he rose from the sepulchre, he rose with the
same heart in him for special affection. It was
the risen Saviour who put the message into
the angel's lips, " Go tell the disciples and
Peter that he is risen from the dead." And
when he ascended up to heaven, he carried the
same heart with him to the throne. "Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me ?" There was
not one of those, his little ones, whom Saul
was persecuting, that he did not identify with
himself. No vague, indefinite, indiscriminate
superintendence is that which the great Good
Shepherd still exercises over his flock, but a
care that particularizes each separate member
of it, and descends to the minutest incidents
of their history.

We rightly say that one great object of the
Incarnation was so to manifest the unseen

124: The Good Shefhekd.

Divinity, that our weak thoughts and our lan-
guid affections might the more easily compre-
hend and embrace him as embodied in the per-
son of Jesus Christ the Son. But we fail to
realize the full meaning, and to take home to
ourselves the full comfort of the Incarnation, if
we regard not our Divine Redeemer as seeing
each of us wherever we are as distinctly as he
saw Nathanael under the fig-tree, Zaccheus
upon the sycamore-tree — as knowing all about
our past history as minutely as he knew all
about that of the woman by the well-side- —
sympathizing as truly and tenderly with all
our spiritual trials and sorrows as he did with
those of Peter and the churches whom Saul
was persecuting.

2. Christ speaks of the mutual knowledge,
love, and sympathy which unites the Shep-
herd and the sheep, creating a bond between
them of the closest and most endearing kind.
" I know my sheep, and am known of mine, as
my Father knoweth me, and as I know the
Father." The mutual knowledge of the Shep-
herd and the sheep is likened thus to the
mutual knowledge of the Father and the Son.
The ground of the comparison cannot be in the
omniscience possessed equally by the Father

The Good Shepherd. 12(

and the Son, in virtue of which each full}
knows the other, for no such faculty is pos-
sessed by the sheep, and yet their knowledge
of the Shepherd is said to be the same in kind
with his knowledge of them, and both to be
the same in kind with the Father's knowledge
of the Son, and the Son's knowledge of the
Father. What possibly can be meant by this
but that there is a bond of acquaintanceship,
affection, communion, fellowship between each
true believer and his Saviour, such in its origin,
such in its strength, such in its sacredness, such
in its present blessedness, such in its glorious
issues in eternity,, that no earthly bond what-
ever— no, not the closest that binds man to
man, human heart to human heart — can offer
the fit or adequate symbol of it, to get which we
must climb to those mysterious heights, to that
mysterious bond, by which the Father and the
Son are united in the intimacies of eternal love ?
This bond consists in oneness of life, unity of
spirit, harmony of desire and affection. In the
spiritual world, great as the distances may be
which divide its members (and vast indeed is
that distance at which any of us stand from
our Redeemer), like discerneth like even afar
off", like draws to like, like links itself to like,

126 The Good Shephekd.

truth meets truth, and love meets love, and
holiness clings to holiness. The new-born soul
turns instinctively to him in whom it has found
its better, its eternal life. Known first of him,
it knows him in return ; loved first by him, it
loves him in return. He comes to take up his
abode in it, and it hastens to take up its abode
in him. He dwells in it ; it dwells in him.
And broken and imperfect as, on the believer's
part, this union and communion is, yet is there
in it a nearness, a sacredness, a tenderness
that belongs to no other tie bv which the
human spirit can be bound.

3. The manner in which the Good Shepherd
leads his flock. "He calleth his own sheep by
name, and leadeth them out ; and when lie
putteth forth his sheep, he goeth before them,
and the sheep follow him." The language is
borrowed from pastoral life in Eastern lands ;
and it is remarkable that in almost every point
in which a resemblance is traced between the
office and work of the Shepherd and that of
Christ, the usages of Eastern differ from those
of our Western lands. Our shepherds drive
their flocks before them ; and, in driving,
bring a strong compulsion of some kind to
bear upon the herd. This fashion of it puts all

The Good Shepheed. 127

noticing, knowing, naming, calling of particu-
lar sheep out of the question ; it is not an
attraction from before, it is a propulsion from
behind, that sets our flocks of sheep moving
upon the way ; it is not the hearing of its name,
it is not the call of its master, it is not by the
sight of him going on before that any single
sheep is induced to move onward in the path.
It is quite different in the East : the Eastern
shepherd goes before his sheep, he draws them
after him — draws them by those ties of de-
pendence, and trust, and affection that long
years of living together have established be-
tween them. He calls them by their name ;
they hear and follow. Hence the language of
the Old Testament — "The Lord is my shep-
herd ; he leadeth me beside the still waters."
11 Thou leadest thy people like a flock by the
hand of Moses and of Aaron." " Give ear, 0
Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph
like a flock " — a usage this of Eastern shepherd
life, truly and beautifully illustrative of the
mode by which Jesus guides his people onward
to the fold of their eternal rest ; not by fear,
not by force, not by compulsion of any kind — ■
no, but by love ; by the attraction of his loving
presence, the force of his winning example.

128 The Good Shepherd.

No guide or pastor he, like those Pharisees
whom Jesus had in his eye when, in contrast to
them, he called himself the Good Shepherd —
men binding heavy burdens, and laying them
on other men's shoulders, whilst they would
not touch them themselves with one of their
fingers. In our blessed Lord and Master we
have one who himself trod before us every step
that he would have us tread, bore every bur-
den he would have us bear, met every tempta-
tion he would have us meet, shared every grief
he would have us share, did every duty he
would have us do. Study it aright, and it will
surprise you to discover over what a wide and
varied field of human experience the example
of our Saviour stretches, how difficult it is to
find a position or experience of our common
human life to which you may not find some-
thing answering in the life of Jesus of Naza-
reth.

4. The consummating act of his love for the
sheep, and the perfect voluntariness with which
that act is done. " I am the Good Shepherd —
the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
The hireling undertakes to guard the sheep as
best he can. It is expected that he should be
vigilant, alert, courageous in their defence, run-

The G-ood Shepherd, 129

ning at limes, if need be, some risk even of
limb or life. But no owner of a flock ever
bound it upon the shepherd whom he hired, as
a condition of his office, that if ever it came to
be the alternative that the sheep must perish,
or the shepherd perish, the latter must give up
his life to save the flock. A human life is too
precious a thing to be sacriticed in such a way.
The owner of the flock would not give his own
life for the sheep ; he could not righteously ask
his hireling to do it. The intrinsic difference
in nature and in worth between the man and
the sheep is such as to preclude the idea of a
voluntary surrender of life by the one, simply
to preserve the other. How much in value
above all the lives for which it was given was
that of God's own eternal Son, we have no
means of computing ; but we can see how far
above all sacrifice, that either the owner of the
flock acting himself as shepherd, or any under-
shepherd whom he hired, ever made or could
be expected to make, was that which Jesus
made when he laid down his life for the sheep.
Yet how freely was this done ! "I lay down
my life that I might take it again : no man
taketh it from me, but I lay it clown of myself.
I have power to lay it down, and I have powei

130 The Good Shepherd.

to take it again." Life is that mysterious thing
the giving and restoring of which the Creator
keeps m his own hands. No skill or power of
man ever made a new living thing. No skill
or power of man ever rekindled the mystic
light of life when once gone out. The power
lies with man to lay down or take away his
own life, but once laid down, what man is he
that can take it up again ? Yet Jesus speaks
as one who has the recovery of his own life as
much at his command as the relinquishing of it,
speaks of laying it down in order to take it
again. He would have it to be known, that
whatever he might permit the men to do who
had already resolved to take his life, his death
would not be their doing but his own ; a death
undergone spontaneously on his part, of his
own free and unconstrained choice. Most
willingly, through sheer love and pity, out of
the infinite fullness of his divine compassion,
was he to lay down his life for the sheep, that
thus they might have life, and have it more
abundantly than they otherwise could have —
his death their life — his life from the dead
drawing their life up along with it and linking
their eternity with his own.

So we understand, and may attempt to il-

The Good Shepjiekd. 131

lustrate this description by himself of himself as
the Good Shepherd ; but to the men who first
listened to it, especially to those Pharisees whose
conduct as shepherds it was meant to expose,
how absolutely unintelligible in many of its
parts must it have appeared. What an assump-
tion in making himself the one and only door,
in raising himself so high above all other shep-
herds, representing himself as possessed of attri-
butes that none of them possessed, making sac-
rifices none of them ever made ! If a shepherd
gave his life for the sheep, one would think
that the sheep would lose instead of gain ;
would, in consequence of his removal, be all
the more at the mercy of the destroyer. But
here is a shepherd, whose death is held out as
not only protecting the sheep from death, but
imparting to them a new life ; who dies, while
yet by his dying they lose nothing — do not
even lose him as their shepherd — for he no
sooner dies than he lives again to resume his
shepherd's office. More than obscure — ambi-
tious, and utterly self-contradictory must this
account of himself have appeared to the listen-
ing Pharisees, their recoil not lessened by
Christ's dropping incidentally the hint that
there were other sheep not of the Jewish fold.

132 The Good Shephekd.

whom he meant to bring in, so that there
should be one fold, over which he should be the
one shepherd. " There was a division, there-
fore, again among the Jews for these sayings."
To many they appeared so presumptuous and
inexplicable, that they said, " He hath a devil,
and is mad ; why hear ye him ?" There were
others who, unable to give any explanation of
the sa}dngs, yet clung to the evidence of his
miracles, particularly of the one they had just
witnessed. "These are not the words of him
that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes
of the blind?"

Leaving them to settle these differences
among themselves, Jesus withdrew ; and for
two months — from the time of the Feast of
Tabernacles to that of the Feast of the dedica-
tion— the curtain drops over Jerusalem, and
we see and hear no more of anything said or
done by Jesus there. Where and how were
those two months spent ? Many think that our
Lord must have remained in or near the capital
during this interval. It appears to us much
more likely that he had returned to Galilee.
We are expressly told that he would not walk
in " Jewry because the Jews sought to kill
him." After the formal attempt of the rulers

The Good Shepherd. 133

to arrest him, and after the populace having ta-
ken up stones to stone him, during the Feast of
Tabernacles, it seems little likely that he would
remain so long a time within their reach and
power. When next he appears in Solomon's
4>orch, and the Jews gather round him, the
tone of the conversation that ensues, in which
there is so direct a reference to his declarations
about himself, uttered at the close of the pre-
ceding festival, is best explained by our con-
ceiving that this was a sudden reappearance of
Jesus in the midst of them, when the thoughts
both of himself and his hearers naturally re-
verted to the incidents of their last interview in
the Temple. "Then came the Jews round
about him, and said, How long d'ost thou make
us to doubt ? If thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly." There was not a little petulance, and
a large mixture of hypocrisy in the demand.
These were not honest inquiries seeking only
relief from perplexing doubts. Whatever Christ
might say about himself, their mind about him
was quite made up. They do not come to ask
about that late discourse of his in which he had
spoken so plainly about his being the one and
only true shepherd of the sheep. They do not
come to inquire further about that door, by

134 The Good Shepheed.

which he had said that the true fold could alone
be entered. They come with the one distinct
and abrupt demand, that he should tell them
plainly whether he was the Christ ; apparently
implying some readiness on their part to be-
lieve, but only such a readiness as the men,
around the cross expressed when they exclaimed,
"Let him come down from the cross, and we
will believe." They want him to assert that
he was the Christ. They want to get the evi-
dence from his owm lips on which his condem-
nation by the Sanhedrim could be grounded ,
knowing beside that an express claim on his
part to the Messiahship would alienate many
even among those whose incredulity had been
temporarily shaken.

There was singular wisdom in our Lord's re-
ply : "I told you before, and ye believed not."
In no instance had he ever openly declared to
these Jews of Jerusalem that he was the Christ.
Nor was he now about to affirm it in the way
that they prescribed. Nevertheless it was
quite true that he had often told them who and
what he was ; told enough to satisfy them that
he must be either their long-expected Messiah
or a deceiver of the people. And though he
had said nothing, his works had borne no am-

The Good Shepherd. 135

biguous testimony to his character and office.
But they had not received, they had rejected
all that evidence. They wanted plain speak-
ing, and now they get it — get more of it than
they expected or desired — for Jesus not only
broadly proclaims their unbelief, but, revert-
ing to that unwelcome discourse which was still
ringing in their troubled ears, he tells them of
the nature and the source of their unbelief:
" Ye believe not, because ye are not of my
sheep, as I said unto you." Without dwelling,
however, upon this painful topic — one about
which these Jews then, and we readers of the
Gospel now, might be disposed to put many
questions, to which no satisfactory answers
from any quarter might come to us — Jesus
goes on to dwell upon what to him, as it should
be to us, was a far more grateful topic — the
characteristics and the privileges of his own
true and faithful flock: "My sheep hear my
voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
That and more he had previously said while
speaking of himself as the good shepherd, and
noting some of the characteristics of his sheep.
But now he will add something more as to
the origin and nature, the steadfast and eternal
endurance, of that new relationship, into which,

136 The Good Shepherd.

by becoming his, all the true members of hu
spiritual flock are admitted.

" And I give unto them eternal life." Spir-
itual life, life in God, to God, is the new, fresh
gift of Christ's everlasting love. To procure
and to impart it was the great object of his
mission to our earth. "I am come," he said,
" that they might have life," and that they
might have it more abundantly." His incarna-
tion was the manifestation of this life in all its
fullness in his own person. " The life was
manifested, and we have seen it, and bear wit-
ness, and show unto you, that eternal life
which was with the Father, and was man-
ifested unto us." " In him was life, and the
life was the light of men." The life not flow-
ing from the light, but the light from the life,
even as our Lord himself had said, "I am the
light of the world : he that folio weth me shall
not walk in darkness, but shall have the light
of life."

There are gifts of Christ's purchase and be-
stowment that he makes over at once, and in
a full completed form, to the believer, such as
pardon of sin, acceptance with God, the title
to the heavenly inheritance. But the chief gift
of his love — the life of faith, of love, of meek

The Good Shepherd. 137

endurance, of self-sacrificing service and suf-
fering— comes not to any of us now in such a
form. It is but the germ of it that is planted in
the heart. Its history here is but that of the seed
as it lies in the damp, cold earth, as it rots and
moulders beneath the sod, waiting the sunshine
and the shower, a large part of it corrupting,
decaying, that out of the very bosom of rot-
tenness, out of the very heart of death, the new
life may spring. Could but an intelligent con-
sciousness descend with the seed into the earth,
and attend the different processes that go on
there, we should have an emblem of the too
frequent consciousness that accompanies those
first stages of the spiritual life, in which, amid
doubts and fears, surrounded by the besetting
elements of darkness, weakness, corruption,
death, the soul struggles onward into the life
everlasting.

But weak as it is in itself, in its first begin-
nings, this spiritual life partakes of the immor-
tality, the immutability, of the source from
which it springs. It is this which bestows
such preciousness on it. Put into a man's
hand the seed of a flower-bearing or fruit-bear-
ing plant, it is not the bare bulb he grasps he
thanks you for. It would have but little worth

138 The Good Shepherd.

in his e}Tes were it to remain forever in the
condition in which he gets it. It is the capa-
city for after growth, the sure promise of living
flower and fruit that lies enwrapped within,
that gives it all its value. Slowly but surely
does the mysterious principle of life that lodges
in it operate, till the flower expands before the
eye and the ripened fruit drops into the hand.
So is it with the seed of the divine life lodged
by the Spirit in the soul ; with this difference,
that for it there is to be no autumn season of
decay and death. It is to grow, and grow for-
ever— ever expanding, ever strengthening, ever
maturing ; its perpetuity due to the infinite
and unchangeable grace and power of him on
whom it wholly hangs. Strictly speaking our
natural life is as entirely dependent on God as
our spiritual one. But there is this great dis-
tinction between the two — the one may run
its course, too often does so, without any abid-
ing sense on the part of him who is passing
through it of his absolute and continued de-
pendence on the great Lifegiver. The other
cannot do so. Its essence lies in the ever con-
sciousness of its origin, its continuance in the
preservation of that consciousness.

You may try to solve the phenomena of life

The Good Shepherd. 139

in its lower types and forms, by imagining that
a separate independent element or principle is
bestowed at first by the Creator, which is left
afterwards, apart from any connection with
him, to develop its latent inherent qualities.
You cannot solve thus the life that is hidden
with Christ in God. Apart from him who
gave it being, it has no vitality. It begins in a
sense of entire indebtedness to him ; it con-
tinues only so long as that sense of indebted-
ness is sustained. It is not within itself that
the securities for its continuance are to be
found.

" My sheep shall never perish, neither shall
any man pluck them out of my hand. My Fa-
ther which gave them me is greater than all,
and none shall pluck them out of my Father's
hands." Are we not entitled to gather from
these words the comforting assurance that all
who by the secret communications of his grace
have had this life transfused into their souls,
shall be securely and eternally upheld by the
mighty power of Christ, so that they shall never
perish? — not so upheld, whatever they after-
wards may be or do, not so upheld that
the thought of their security may slacken their
own diligence or tempt them to transgress, but

140 The Good Shepherd.

so that the very sense of their having such
a presence and such a power as that of Jesus
ever with them to protect and bless, shall ope-
rate as a new spring and impulse to all holy .
activities, and shall keep from ever becoming
or even doing that whereby his friendship
would be finally and forever forfeited and lost.
Do we feel the first faint beatings of the new
life in our heart ? Do we fear that these may
be so checked and hardened as to be finally
and forever stopped ? Let us not think of our
weakness, but of Christ's strength ; of our faith,
but of his faithfulness : of the firmness of our
hold of him, but of the firmness of his hold of
us. The hollow of that hand of our Redeemer
is the one safe place for us into which to put
our sinful soul. Not into the hand of the
Father, as the great and holy Lawgiver,
would the spirit in the first exercises of peni-
tence and faith venture to thrust itself, lest out
of that hand it should indignantly be flung, and
scattered and lost, should be the wealth of its
immortality. It is into the hand of the Son, the
Saviour, that it puts itself. Yet, soon as ever
it does so, the oilier hand, that of the Father,
closes over it, as if the redoubled might of Om-
nipotence waited and hastened to guard the

The Good Shepherd. 141

treasure. "Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. . . . No man is able to pluck
them out of my Father's hand." The believer's
life is hid "with Christ." Far up beyond all
reach of danger this of itself would place it.
But further still, it is hid " with Christ in
God." Does this not, as it were, double the
distance, and place the breadth of two infinites
between it and the possibility of perishing ?

" I and my Father are one." It was on his
saying so that they took up stones again to
stone him. He might have claimed to be Christ,
but there had been nothing blasphemous in his
doing so. Many of the people — some even of
the rulers — believed, or half suspected, that he
was the Messiah ; yet it never was imagined
that in setting forth such a claim Jesus was
guilty of a crime for which he might righteously
be stoned to death. The Jews were not expect-
ing the Divine Being to appear as their Messiah.
They were looking only for one in human na-
ture, of ordinary human parentage, to come to
be their king. It is not till he speaks of his
hand being of equal power with the Father's to
protect — till he grounds that equality of power
upon unity of nature — till he says that he and
the Father are one — that they take up stones to

142 The Good Shepheed.

stone him. And their words explain their ac-
tions. While yet the stones are in their hands,
Jesus says to them, " Many good works have I
showed you of my Father, for which of these
works do ye stone me ?" Ready for the mo-
ment to concede anything as to the character
of his works, they answer, "For a good work
we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and be-
cause that thou, being a man makest thyself
God." They understood him as asserting his
divinity. Had they misunderstood his words,
how easy it had been for Christ to correct their
error — to tell them that he was no blasphemer
as they thought him ; that in calling himself the
Son of God he did not mean to claim equality
with the Father. He did not do so. He quotes,
indeed, in the first instance, a sentence from
their own Scriptures, in which their Judges
were called gods ; but he proceeds immediately
thereafter to separate himself from, and to exalt
himself above, those to whom, because of their
office, and because of the word of God coming
to them, the epithet was once or twice applied,
and reasons from the less to the greater. He
says, "If he called them gods, unto whom the
word of God came, say ye of him whom the
Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world,

The Good Shepheed. 143

Thou blasphemest ; because I said, I am the
Son of God ?" At first there was some ambi-
guity in the defence. Although intimating that
the appellation might be applied with more pro-
priety to him than to any of their old judges, it
might be on the ground only of a higher office
or higher mission than theirs that Jesus was
reasoning. They listen without interrupting
him. But when he adds — "If I do not the
works of my Father, believe me not. But if I
do, though ye believe not me, }7et believe the
works : that ye may know, and believe, that
the Father is in me, and I in him," they see
that he is taking up the same ground as at the
first — is claiming to be equal with the Father —
is making himself God ; and so once again they
seek to take him — to deal with him as a blas-
phemer ; but he escaped out of their hands.
That neither upon this nor upon any other oc-
casion of the same kind did our Lord complain
of being condemned mistakenly when regarded
as being guilty of blasphemy, nor offer the ex-
planation which at once would have set aside
the charge, we regard as the clearest of all
proofs that the Jews were not in error in inter-
preting his sayings as they did.

We take, then, our Lord's wonderful sayings

144 The Good Shepherd.

at the Feast of Dedication as asserting the es-
sential unity of nature and attributes between
himself and the Father, and as thus assuring us
of the perfect and everlasting security and well-
being of all who put their souls for keeping into
his hand.

VIII.

INCIDENTS IN OUR LORD'S LAST JOURNEY TO
JERUSALEM.*

WE are inclined to believe that it was
during the two months' interval be-
twixt the Feast of Tabernacles and the Feast
of Dedication 'that Christ's last visit to Galilee
was paid — his farewell taken of the home of
his youth — the scenes of his chief labors.
Those labors had lasted for about two years,
and in them an almost ceaseless activity had
been displayed. He had made many circuits
through all the towns and' villages of the dis-
trict, performed innumerable miracles, and
delivered innumerable addresses to larger or
smaller audiences. Yet the visible results had
not been great. He had attached twelve men
to him as his constant and devoted attendants.
There were four or five hundred more ready
to acknowledge themselves as his disciples. A

* Luke he. 51-62 ; x. 1-24.

146 Incidents in Our Lord's

vast excitement and a large measure of public
sympathy had at first been awakened. Multi-
tudes were ready to hail him as the great ex-
pected Deliverer. But as the months rolled
on, and there was nothing in his character, or
teaching, or doings answering to their ideas of
what this deliverer was to be and do, they
got incredulous — their incredulity fanned into
strength by a growing party headed by the
chief Pharisees, who openly rejected and re-
viled him. There had not been much in his
earlier instructions to which exception could
be taken, but when he began at 'a later period
to speak of himself as the bread of life, and to
declare that unless men ate his flesh and drank
his blood they had no life in them, his favor
with the populace declined, and they were
even ready to believe all that his enemies in-
sinuated, as to his being a profane man — an
enemy to Moses and to their old laws. Not a
few were still ready to regard him as a prophet,
perhaps the forerunner of the Messiah ; but
outside the small circle of his immediate at-
tendants there were few if any who recognized
him as the Christ of God. Of this decline in
fnvor with the multitude his adversaries greed-
ily availed themselves, and Galilee was fast be-

Last Journey to Jerusalem. 14?

coming as dangerous a home for him as Juclea.
Meanwhile his own disciples had been slowly
awakening from their first low and earthly
notions of him — their eyes slowly opening to
the recognition of the great mystery of his
character, as being no other than the incarnate
Son of God. Till they were lifted up above
their old Jewish notions of the Messiah — till
they came to perceive how singular was the rela-
tionship in which Jesus stood to the Father, how
purely spiritual were the ends which he came to
accomplish — he did not, could not intelligibly
speak to them of his approaching death, resur-
rection, and ascension. The confession of
Peter in the name of all the rest that he was
the Christ, the Son of God, marked at once the
arrival of the period at which Jesus began so
to speak, and the close of his labors in Galilee.
On both sides, on the part alike of friends and
enemies, things were ripening for the great
termination, the time had come " that he
should be received up," and "he steadfastly
set his face to go up to Jerusalem."

Starting from Capernaum and travelling
southward by the route on the west side of the
Jordan, he sends messengers before his face,
who enter a village of Samaritans. AYe re-

148 Incidents in Our Lord's*

member how gladly he had been welcomed
two years before in one town of that district,
how ready the inhabitants of Sychar had
been to hail him as the Messiah, and we may
wonder that now the people of a Samaritan
village should so resist his entrance and reject
his claims. It may have been that they were
men of a different spirit from that of the Sych-
arites. But it may also have arisen from this —
that the Samaritans at first had hoped that if
he were indeed the Messiah, he would decide
in favor of their temple and its worship, but
that now, when they see him going up publicly
to the feasts at Jerusalem, and sanctioning by
his presence the ordinances of the sanctuary
there, their feelings had changed from those of
friendliness into those of hostility. However it
was, the men of this village — the first Samari-
tan one that lay in the Lord's path — "would
not receive him, because his face was as though
he would go to Jerusalem." Some marked ex-
pressions of their unfriendliness had been given,
some open indignities flung upon his messen-
gers, of which James and John were witnesses.
These two disciples had been lately with their
Master on the Mount of Transfiguration, and
had seen there the homage that the great pro-

Last Journey to Jerusalem. 149

pliet Elijah had rendered to him. They were
now in the very region of Elijah's life and
labors. They had crossed the head of the
great plain, at one end of which stood Jezreel,
and at the other the heights of Carmel. The
events of the last few weeks had been filling
their minds with vague yet unbounded hopes.
Their Master had thrown off much of his
reserve, had shown them his glory on the
mount, had spoken to them as he had never
done before, had told them of the strange
things that were to happen at Jerusalem, had
made them feel by the very manner of his en-
trance upon this last journey from Galilee,
that the crisis of his history was drawing on.
He courts secrecy no longer. He sends messen-
gers before his face. He is about to make a
public triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Yet
here are Samaritans who openly despise him —
will not give him even a night's lodging in
their village. The fervid attachment to Jesus
that beats in the hearts of James and John
kindles into indignation at this treatment.
Their indignation turns into vengeful feeling
towards the men who were guilty of such con-
duct. They look around. The heights of
Carmel remind them of what Elias had done to

150 Incidents in Our Lord's

the false prophets, and fancying that they were
fired with the same spirit, and had a still
weightier wrong to avenge, they turn to Jesus,
saying, "Lord, wilt thou that we command
fire to come down from heaven and consume
them, even as Elias did ?" They expect Jesus
to enter fully and approvingly into the senti-
ment by which they are animated ; they know
it springs from love to him ; they are so confi-
dent that theirs is a pure and holy zeal, that
they never doubt that the fire from heaven
waits to be its minister ; they want only to get
permission to use the bolts of heavenly ven-
geance that they believe are at their command.
How surprised they must have been when
Jesus turned and rebuked them, saying, "Ye
know not what maimer of spirit ye are of ;
for the Son of Man is not come to destroy
men's lives, but to save them."

Jesus is not now here for any personal in-
sult to be offered — any personal 'injury to be
inflicted ; but still he stands represented, as he
himself has taught us, in the persons of all his
little ones, in the body of his Church, the com-
pany of the faithful. Among these little ones,
within that company, how many have there
been, how many are there still, who cherish the

Last Joueney to Jeiius/Nxem. 151

spirit of James and John ? who as much need
our Lord's rebuke, and who would be as much
surprised at that rebuke being given ? There
is no one thicker cloak beneath which human
passions hide themselves, than that of religious
zeal — zeal for Christ's truth, Christ's cause,
Christ's kingdom. Once let a man believe (a
belief for which he may have much good reason,
for it is not spurioas but real zeal that we are
now speaking of) — once let a man believe that a
true and ardent attachment to Christ, a true and
ardent zeal to promote the honor of his name,
the interests of his kingdom, glows within him,
and it is perfectly astonishing to what extent the
consciousness of this may delude him — shut
his eye from seeing, his heart from feeling —
that, under the specious guise of such love and
zeal, he is harboring and indulging some of the
meanest and darkest passions of our nature — ■
wounded pride, irritation at opposition, comba-
tiveness, the sheer love of fighting, of having
an adversary of some kind to grapple with and
overcome, personal hatred, the deep thirst to
be avenged. These, and suchlike passions, did
they not, in the days gone by, rankle in the
breasts of persecutors and controversialists ? —
of men who claimed to be animated in all they

152 Incidents m Our Lord's

said and did by a supreme regard to the honor
of their Heavenly Master ? These, and such-
like passions, do they not rankle still in the
hearts of many, now that the hand of the per-
secutor has, to so great an extent, been tied
up, and the pen of the controversialist re-
strained? prompting still the uncharitable
judgment, the spiteful remark, the harsh and
cruel treatment. Christ's holy character and
noble cause may have insults offered, deep in-
juries done to them ; but let us be assured
that it is not by getting angry at those who
are guilty of such conduct, not by maligning
their character, not by the visitation of pains
and penalties of any kind upon them, that
'these insults and injuries are to be avenged ;
no, but by forbearance and gentleness, and
love and pity — by feeling and acting towards
all such men as our blessed Lord and Master
felt and acted towards the inhabitants of that
Samaritan village.

Perhaps it was the gentle but firm manner
in which Jesus rebuked the proposal of the two
disciples — telling them how ignorant they were
of the true state of their own hearts — that led
the Evangelist to introduce here the narrative
of those cases in which our Lord dealt with

Last Journey to Jerusalem. 153

other moods and tempers of the human spirit
which produce often the same self-ignorance,
and too often seriously interfere with a faithful
following of Christ. One man comes — a type
of the hasty, the impetuous, the inconsiderate,
—and, volunteering discipleship, he proclaims,
" Lord, I will follow withersoever thou goest."
Boastful, self-ignorant, self-confident, he has not
stopped to think what following of Jesus means,
or whither it will carry him — unprepared for
the difficulties and trials of that discipleship
which he is in such haste to take on. The
quieting reply, Foxes have holes, and birds of
the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not
where to lay his head," sends him back to re-
flect somewhat more intelligently and deeply
on what his offer and promise imply. Another
is asked by Christ himself to follow him ; but he
says, " Suffer me first to go and bury my father:"
a type of the depressed, the melancholic — of
those whom the very griefs and sorrows of this
life and the sad duties to which these call them
stand as a barrier between them and the services,
the sacrifices, the comforts and consolations of
the faith. Such need to be taught that there is
a duty above that of self-indulgence in any hu-
man grief; and so to this man the Lord's per-

154 Incidents in Our Lord's

emptory reply is, "Let the dead bury their
dead, but go thou and preach the kingdom of
God/' A third man asks, that before obeying
the Saviour's call, he might be allowed first to
go and bid his friends and relatives farewell : a
very natural request— one in which we should
imagine there was little that was wrong ; but
the Searcher of all hearts sees that there is a
hankering here after the old familiar way of liv-
ing— a reluctance of some kind in some degree
to take the new yoke on ; and so the warning
is conveyed to him in the words, " No man hav-
ing put his hand to the plough and looking
back is fit for the Kingdom of God." So varied
was the spirit in which men approached Jesus,
in whom some readiness to follow him appeared,
so varied was the manner in which our Lord
dealt with such, suiting himself to each particu-
lar case with a nicety of adjustment of which in
our ignorance we are but imperfect judges, but
enabling us to gather from the whole that it is
a deliberate, a cheerful, an entire and uncondi-
tional surrender of the heart and life that Jesus
asks from all who would be truly and forever
his.

Rejected by the Samaritans, Jesus turned to
another village and chose another route to Je-

Last Journey to Jerusalem. 155

rusalem, in all likelihood the well-known and
most frequented one leading through Perasa, on
the east side of the Jordan. In prosecuting
this journey, he " appointed other seventy also
and sent them two and two before his face into
every city and place whither he himself would
come." Our Lord had gathered around him in
passing from Capernaum to Samaria almost the
entire body of his Galilean discipleship. It
could scarcely furnish more men than were sent
forth on this important mission. Every avail-
able disciple of suitable age and character was
enlisted in the service. It can scarcely be ima-
gined that they were employed for no other
purpose than to provide suitable accommoda-
tion beforehand for their Master. Theirs was
a higher and far more important errand.

For the wisest reasons Jesus had hitherto
avoided any public proclamation of his Messiah-
ship. He had left it to his words and deeds to
tell the people who and what he was. He had,
not long before this time, charged his apostles
" that they should tell no man that he was Je-
sus the Christ."* But the time had come for
his throwing aside this reserve — for seeking

* Matt. xvi. 20.

156 Incidents in Ouk Loed's

rather than shunning publicity — for letting all
men know, not only that the kingdom had
come, but that he, the head of that kingdom,
the Christ, the Son of David, the king of Israel,
was in the midst of them. Before his departure
from among them, the Israelitish nation was to
have this proclaimed through all its borders.
This was to be the peculiar distinction of his
last journeyings towards the Holy City — that
all along upon their course his Messianic char-
acter should be publicly proclaimed, that so a
last opportunity for receiving or rejecting him
might be afforded. And how could this have
been better effected than by the mission of the
seventy ? By the advance of so many men
two by two before him, the greatest publicity
must have been given to all his movements.
In every place and city the voice of his fore-
runners would summon forth the people to be
waiting his approach. The deputies them-
selves could scarcely fail to feel how urgent
and important the duty was which was com-
mitted to their hands. Summoning them
around him before he sent them forth, Jesus
addressed to them instructions almost identical
with those addressed to the twelve at the time
of their inauguration as his apostles. The ad-

Last Joueney to Jeeusaleiyt. 157

dress to the twelve, as reported by St. Matthew
(chap, x), was longer, bore more of the charac-
ter of an induction to a permanent office,
carried in it allusions to duties to be done,
persecutions to be endured, promises to be ful-
filled, in times that were to follow the removal
of the Lord ; but so far as that first short mis-
sion of the twelve and this mission of the sev-
enty were concerned, the instructions were
almost literally the same. Both were to go
forth in the same character, vested with the
same powers, to discharge the same office in
the same way ; to the rejecters and despisers
of both the same guilt was attached, and upon
them the same woes were denounced. We
notice, indeed, these slight differences ; that
the prohibition laid upon the twelve not to go
into the way of the Gentiles, nor into any city
of the Samaritans, is now withdrawn, and that
the gift of miraculous power is seemingly more
limited as committed to the seventy, being re-
stricted nominally to the healing of the sick.
But these scarcely affect the question when
comparison is made between the commissions
given to the twelve and to the seventy, as em-
ployed respectively on the two temporary mis-
sions on which Jesus sent them forth. The

153 Incidents in Our Loed's

result of that comparison is, that no real dis-
tinction of any importance can be drawn be-
tween the two. Does this not serve, when
duly weighed, to stamp, with far greater sig-
nificance than is ordinarily attached to it,
the mission of the seventy — raising it to the
same platform with that of the apostles ? It is
quite true that the apostles were to be apostles
for life, and the seventy were to have no per-
manent standing or office of any kind in the
Church. But it is equally true that in their
distinctively apostolic character and office the
twelve were to have — indeed, could have — no
successors. If, then, the commission and the
directions given to them are to be taken as
guides to those who were afterwards to hold
office in the Church, the commission and direc-
tions given to the seventy may equally be re-
garded as given for the guidance of the mem-
bership of the Church at large ; this, the great,
the abiding lesson that their employment by
Jesus carries with it — that it is not to ministers
or ordained officers of the Church alone that
the duty pertains of spreading abroad amongst
those around them the knowledge of Christ.
To the whole Church of the living God, to each
individual member thereof, the great commis-

Last Journey to Jerusalem. 159

sion comes, " Go thou and make the Saviour
known.'7 As the Father sent him, Jesus sends
all who own and love him on the same errand
of mercy. Originally the Church of Christ
was one large company of missionaries of the
cross, each member feeling that to him a por-
tion— differing it may be largely both in kind
and sphere from that assigned to others, but
still a portion — of the great task of evangeliz-
ing the world was committed ; and it shall be
just in proportion as the community of the
faithful, through all its parts, in all its members
comes to recognize this to be its function, and
attempts to execute it, that the expansive
power that once belonged to it will return to it
again, and not so much by organized societies
or the work of paid deputies, as by the living
power of individual pity, sympathy, and love,
spirit after spirit will be drawn into the fold of
our Redeemer, and his kingdom be enlarged
upon the earth.

Where the seventy went, — into what places
and cities they entered, how they were received,
what spiritual good was effected by them, — all
this is hidden from our view. The sole brief
record of the result of their labors is what
is told us about their return. They came back

ICO Incidents in Ouk Lokd's

rejoicing. One thing especially had struck
them, and of this only they make mention —
that, though they had not been told of it be-
forehand, the very devils had been subject
unto them through their Master's name. They
were pleased, perhaps somewhat proud, that
what nine of the Lord's own apostles had
failed in doing they had done. Jesus tells
them that his eye had been on them in their
progress' — that he had seen what they could
not see — how the powers of the invisible world
had been moved, and Satan had fallen as
lightning from heaven. He tells them that it
was no temporary power this with which they
had been invested — that instead of being dimin-
ished, it would afterwards be enlarged till it
covered and brought beneath its sway all the
power of the enemy. But there was a warn-
ing he had to give them. He saw that their
minds and hearts were too much occupied by
the mere exercise of power — by the most
striking and tangible results of the exercise of
that power. Knowing how faithless an index
what is done by any agent is of what that
agent himself is, of his real worth and value in
the sight of God, he checks so far their joy by
saying, " Notwithstanding; in this rejoice not,

Last Journey to Jerusalem. 161

that the spirits are subject to you ; but rather
rejoice because your names are written in
heaven." There is a book of remembrance in
the heavens, the Lamb's book of life, in which
the names of all his true and faithful followers
are written. It may be a great thing to have
one's name inscribed in large, enduring letters
in the roll of those who have done great things
for Chfist and for Christ's cause upon this
earth ; but that earthly register does not cor-
respond with the one that is kept above.
There are names to be found in the one that
would not be met with in the other. There
are names which shine bright in the one that
appear but faintly luminous in the other.
There are names that have never been entered
in the one that beam forth with a heavenly
brilliance in the other. The time comes when
over the one the waters of oblivion shall pass,
and its records be all wiped away. The time
shall never come when the names that shall at
last be found written in the other shall be
blotted out.

The joy of the disciples had an impure
earthly element in it which needed correction.
No such element was in the joy which the in-
telligence that the sevent) brought with them

162 Incidents in Our Lord's

kindled in the Saviour's breast. He was the
man of sorrows ; a load of inward unearthly
grief lay heavy upon his heart. But out of
that very grief- — the grief that he endured for
the sinful world he came to save — there broke
a joy — the purest, the sublimest, the most
blissful — that felt by him when he saw that
the great ends of his mission were being ac-
complished, and that the things belonging to
their eternal peace were being revealed to the
souls of men. " In that hour Jesus rejoiced in
spirit, and said, I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord
of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these
things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father,
for so it seemed good in thy sight." Once be-
fore Jesus had offered up the same thanksgiv-
ing, in the same words, to the Father. We
sought then to enter a little into its meaning.*
Now from the very repetition of it let us learn
how fixed the order is, and how grateful we
should be that it is so — that it is to the simple,
the humble, the teachable, the childlike in
heart and spirit, that the blessed revelation
cometh.

* See " Ministry in Galilee," p. 118 seq.

Last Journey to Jerusalem. 1G3

Blessed we have called it, taking the epithet
from Christ's own lips ; for after he had offered
up that thanksgiving to his Father, he turned
to his disciples and said to them privately,
" Blessed are the eyes which see the things that
you see ; for I tell you that many prophets
and kings have desired to see those things which
ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear
those things which ye hear, and have not heard
them,

One closing remark upon the position in the
spiritual kingdom here tacitly assumed or open-
ly claimed by Christ. He prefaced his instruc-
tions to the seventy by saying, " The harvest
truly is great, and the laborers are few : pray
ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He
would send forth laborers into his harvest.'"'
Who was the Lord of the harvest, to whom
these prayers of his disciples were to be ad-
dressed ? Does he not tell them when he him-
self immediately thereafter proceeds to send
forth some laborers, instructing them how the
work in the great harvest field was to be carried
on ? Parting from Galilee he casts a lingering
glance behind upon its towns and villages —
Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum. Who
shall explain to us wherein the exceeding privi-

lGi The Last Journey to Jerusalem.

leges of these cities consisted, and wherein their
exceeding guilt ? Who shall vindicate the sent
tence that Jesus passed, the woes that he de-
nounced upon them, if he was not the Son of
God, into whose hands the judgment of the
earth hath been committed ? "I beheld," said
Jesus, " Satan like lightning fall from heaven."'
Was the vision a true one ? If so, what kind
of eye was it that saw it ? "All things are de-
livered to me of my Father, and no man know-
eth who the Son is but the. Father, and who the
Father is but the Son, and he to whom the Son
will reveal him." With what approach to truth
or to propriety could language like this be used
by any human, any created being ? So is it
continually here and there along the track uf
his earthly sojourn, the hidden glory bursas
through the veil that covers it, and in the full
majesty of the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-judg-
ing, all-directing One — Jesus of Nazareth pre-
sents himself to the eye of faith.

IX.

OUR LORD'S MINISTRY IN PERjEA.*

THE Feast of Tabernacles, at which St. John
tells us that Jesus was present, was held
in the end of October. The succeeding Pass-
over, at which our Lord was crucified, occurred
in the beginning of April. Between the two
there intervened five months. Had we de-
pended alone upon the information given us by
the first two Evangelists, we should have known
nothing of what happened in this interval be-
yond the fact that, when his ministry in Galilee
was over, Christ went up to Jerusalem to die
there. They tell us of two or three incidents
which occurred at the close of this last journey,
but leave us altogether in the dark as to any
preceding visit to Jerusalem or journeyings and
labors in any other districts of the land. True
to his particular object of giving us the details

* Luke ix. 51 to Luke xviii. 16.

166 Our Lord's Ministry in Per^a.

of Christ's ministry in Judea, St. John enables
us so far to fill up this blank as to insert : — (1.)
The appearance at the Feast of Tabernacles ;
(2.) The appearance at the Feast of Dedication,
held in the latter end of December ; (3.) A re-
tirement immediately after the feast to Per sea,
the region beyond the Jordan ; (4.) A sum-
mons back to Bethany upon the occasion of the
death of Lazarus ; (5.) A retreat to " a country
near to the wilderness, into a city called
Ephraim ;" and (6.) A coming up to Bethany
and Jerusalem six days before the Passover.
These cover, however, but a small portion of
the five months. At the first of the two feasts
Jesus was not more than four or five— at the
second, not more than eight — days in Jerusalem.
His stay at Bethany, when he came to raise
Lazarus from the dead, was cut short by the con-
spiracy to put him to death. Not more than a
fortnight out of the five months is thus account-
ed for as having been passed in Jerusalem and
its neighborhood. Where then was spent the
remaining portion of the time ? The Gospel
of St. Luke — and it alone— enables us to answer
these questions. There is a large section of
this Gospel— from the close of the 9th to near
the middle of the 18th chapter — which is occu-

Oue Lord's Ministry in Per^ea. 167

pied with this period, and which stands, by itself,
having nothing parallel to it in any other of the
Evangelists. This section commences with the
words, "And it came to pass, when the time
was come that he should be received up, he
steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and
sent messengers before his face : and they went,
and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to
make ready for him."* St. Matthew describes
What is obviously the same event — our Lord's
farewell to. Galilee — in these words: "and it
came to pass, that, when Jesus had finished
these sayings, he departed from Galilee, and
came into the coasts of Judea beyond Jordan. "f
And similarly St. Mark, of the same movement,
says, "And he arose from thence, and cometh
into the coasts of Judea, beyond Jordan." J In
the same chapters, and but a few verses after
those in which these announcements are made,
both St. Matthew and St. Mark relate the inci-
dent of little children having been brought to
Jesus. But in the Gospel of St. Luke, the re-
cord of this incident, instead of following «o
closely upon the notice of the departure from
Galilee, does not come in till the close of the

* Luke ix. 51, 52. f Matt. xis. 1. t Mark x. 1-

168 Our Lord's Ministry in Per^la..

entire section already alluded to — so many as
eight chapters intervening. From that point
the three narratives become again coincident,
and run on together. We have thus so much,
then, as a third part of the entire narrative of
St. Luke, and that continuous — to which, so far
as the sequence of the story goes, there is no-
thing that corresponds in any of the ether Gos-
pels."

In this part of St. Luke's Gospel there are
so few notices of time and place, that had we
it alone before us, our natural conclusion would
be that it described continuously the different
stages of one long journey from Galilee up
through Peraea to Jerusalem. Taking it, how-
ever, in connexion with the information sup-
plied to us by St. John, we become convinced
that it includes all the journeyings to and fro
which took place between the time when Jesus
finally left Galilee to the time when he was
approaching Jericho, on going up to his !ast
Passover. But how are we to distribute the
narrative so as to make its different parts fit in
with the different visits to Jerusalem and its
neighborhood, related by St. John ? Our first
idea here would be to start with identifying
the final departure from Galilee, described by

Our Lord's Ministry m Persea. 1G9

St. Luke, with the going up to the Feast of
Tabernacles, as related by St. John. Looking,
however, somewhat more closely at the two
narratives, we are persuaded that they do not
refer to the same journey. In the one, public
messengers were sent before Christ's face to
proclaim and prepare for his approach ; in the
other, he went up, "not openly, but, as it were,
in secret." The one was slow, prolonged by
a large circuit through many towns and villa-
ges ; the other was rapid — Jesus waited be-
hind till all his brethren and friends had de-
parted, and then suddenly appeared at Jerusa-
lem in the midst of the feast. Did Jesus then
return- to Galilee immediately after the Feast
of Tabernacles, and was it in the course of the
two months that elapsed between the two fes-
tivals that the first part of the journey described
by St. Luke was undertaken ; or was it not till
after the Feast of Dedication that the last visit
to Galilee and the final departure from it took
place ? The absolute silence of St. John as to
any such return to Galilee, and the unbroken
continuity of his account of what happened at
the two Feasts, seem to militate against the
former of these suppositions. We remember,
however, that such silence is not peculiar to

170 Our Lord's Ministry m Per^ea.

this case — that there is a similar instance of a
visit paid to Galilee between the time of the
occurrences, reported respectively in the 5th
and 6th chapters of St. John's Gospel, of which
not the slightest trace is to be 'discovered there.
We remember that if Jesus did remain in Ju-
dea between the Feasts, it must have been in
concealment, for we are told of this very
period, that he would not walk in Jewry be-
cause the Jews sought to kill him.* We re-
member that St. John speaks of his going to
Perosa after the Feast of Dedication as if it
were one following upon another that had re-
cently preceded it, "He went away again be-
yond Jordan. "f We reflect besides that if it
were not till the beginning of January that the
journey from Galilee commenced, there would
be but little room for all the occurrences de-
tailed in these eight chapters of St. Luke's
Gospel : and we accept it as being much the
more likely thing that Jesus did retire from
Judea to Galilee instantly after the close of the
Feast of Tabernacles, and it was then that the
series of incidents commenced, the sole record
of which is preserved to us by the third Evan-

* John vii. 1. + John x. 40.

Our Lord's Ministry m Per^ea. 171

gelist. This, of course, implies that we break
down the portion of his narrative devoted to
the journeys to Jerusalem into portions cor-
responding with the interval between the two
festivals, and those between the latter of these
and the visit to Bethany. This might plausi-
bly enough be done by fixing upon what ap-
pears to be something like one break in the
narrative, occurring at chap. xiii. 22, and
something like another at chap. xvii. 11.
Without resting much upon this, let us (distri-
bute its parts as we may) take the whole ac-
count contained in these eight chapters of St.
Luke, as descriptive of a period of our Lord's
life and ministry, which otherwise would have
been an utter blank, as telling us what hap-
pened away both from Galilee and Judea dur-
ing the five months that immediately preceded
the crucifixion.

Evidently the chief scene or theatre of our
Lord's labors throughout the period was in the
region east of the Jordan. Departing from Ca-
pernaum— turned aside by the inhabitants of the
Samaritan village — he passed along the bor-
ders of Galilee and Samaria, crossed the Jor-
dan at the ford of Bethshean, entering the
southern part of the populous Decapolis, pass-

172 Our Lord's Ministry in Per2ea.

mg hj Jabesh-Gilead, penetrating inward per-
haps as far as Jerash, whose wonderful ruins
attest its wealth and splendor ; then, turning
southward towards Jerusalem, crossing the
Jabbok, pausing at Mahanaim, where Jacob
had his long night-struggle ; climbing or skirt-
ing those heights and forests of Gilead to which,
when driven from Jerusalem by an ungrateful
son, David retreated, and which now was fur-
nishing a like refuge to the Son and Lord of
David in a similar but still sadder extremity.
Much of this country must have been new to
Jesus. He may once or twice have taken the
ordinary route along the eastern bank of the
Jordan, but it is not at all likely that he had
ever before gone so deep into or passed so
leisurely through this district. Certainly he had
never visited it in the same style or manner.
He came among this new population with all
the prestige of his great Galilean name. He
came sending messengers before his face — in
all likelihood the sevent}^ expending their brief
but ardent activities upon this virgin soil. He
came as he had come at first to the Galileans,
at the opening of his ministry, among whom
many of the notices of what occurred here
strikingly remind us, for we are distinctly told

Our Lord's Ministry in Per^a. ■ 173

when he came into the " coasts be)Tond Jordan
he went through the cities and villages,'' and
" great multitudes followed him, and he healed
them," and " the people resorted to him, and
gathered thick together ; and as he was wont,
he taught them." " And when there were
gathered together an innumerable multitude of
people, insomuch that they trode one upon
another, he began to say to his disciples."*
Here we have all the excitements, and the
gatherings, and the manifold healings which
attended the earlier part of the ministry in
Galilee. The two communities were similarly
situated, each remote from metropolitan influ-
ence, more open to new ideas and influences
than the residents in Jerusalem. The instru-
mentality brought to bear upon them in the
presence of Jesus and his disciples, in the pro-
clamation of the advent of the kingdom, in the
working of all manner of cures upon the
diseased among them, was the same. Are we
surprised at it, that so many of the very scenes
enacted at first in Galilee should be enacted
over again in Peraea, and that, exactly similar
occasions having arisen, the same discourses

♦ Luke xiii. 22 ; Matt. xix. 2 ; Mark x. 1 ; Luke xi. 29, 42 ; xii. 1.

174 Our Lord's Ministry in Persia.

should be repeated ? that once more we
should hear the same accusation brought
against Jesus when he cast out devils that he
did so by Beelzebub, and that against this ac-
cusation we should hear from his lips the same
defence ?* that once more, as frequently be-
fore, there should be a seeking of some sign
from heaven, and a telling again the evil gen-
eration that so sought after it that no sign but
that of Jonas the prophet should be given ?
that once more, when asked by the disciples to
teach them to pray the Lord should have
repeated the prayer he had recited in the Ser-
mon on the Mount ? that upon another and
equally suitable occasion, about half of that
sermon should now be re-delivered ? that we
should have in this period two cases of healing
on the Sabbath, exciting the same hostility,
that hostility in turn rebuked by the employ-
ment of the same arguments and illustrations ?
These and other resemblances are not sur-
prising, and yet it is the very discernment of
them which has perplexed many so much, that
(in direct opposition to the expressed purpose
of the Gospel as announced in its opening sen-

* Matt. xii. 24 ; Mark ill. 22 ; Luke xi. 14,

Our Lobd's Ministry in Per^a. 175

tence) they have been tempted to think that, in
violation of all chronological order, St. Luke has
imported into what bears to be an account of
what occurred after the departure from Galilee,
many of the incidents and discourses of the pre-
ceding ministry in Galilee. Instead, however,
of our being perplexed at finding these resem-
blances or coincidences, knowing as we do other-
wise, that it was the practice of our Saviour to re-
iterate (it is likely very often) the mightiest of
his sayings, they are such as we should have ex-
pected when once we come to understand pre-
cisely the peculiarities of this brief Persean min-
istry. But whilst these coincidences as to events
and repetitions as to discourses, do occur, there
occur along with them, mixed up inseparably
with them, many things both in the spirit and
actions of Christ appropriate exclusively to this
particular epoch of his life. No allusions to the
time or manner of his own death, no reference
to the departure and his return, no pressing
upon his disciples of the great duty of waiting
and watching for his second advent, no prophe-
cies of the approaching overturn of the Jewish
economy, came from the lips of Jesus during his
sojourn in Galilee. It was not till the time of
his transfiguration that he began to speak of such

176 Oue Loed's Ministey in Pee^a.

matters privately to his disciples, and even then
it was with bated breath. But now all the
reasons for reserve are nearly, if not entirely
gone. Jesus has set his face to go up to Jeru-
salem to die. He waits and works only a little
longer in this remote region beyond Jordan, till
the set time has come. Nothing that he can say
or do here can have much effect in hastening or
retarding the day of his decease. He may give
free expression to those thoughts and senti-
ments which, now that it is drawing near, must
be gathering often around the great event.
And he may also safely draw aside, at least
partially, the veil which hides the future, con-
cealing at once the awful doom impending over
Jerusalem, and his own speedy return to judge
the nation that had rejected him. And this is
what we now find him doing. Herod, under
whose jurisdiction he still was in Persea, had
got alarmed. Fearing the people too much,
having burden enough to bear from the behead-
ing of the Baptist, he had no real intention to
stretch out his hand to slay Jesus ; but it an-
noyed him to find this new excitement breaking
out in another part of his territories, and he
got some willing emissaries among the Pharisees
to go to Jesus, and to say, as if from private

Ouii Lord's Ministry in Pekjsa. 177

information, " Got thee out, and depart hence,
for Herod will kill thee. And Jesus said, Go
ye and tell that fox " — who thinks so cunningly
by working upon my fears to get rid of me be-
fore my time — " Behold, I cast out devils, and
I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third
day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless, I must
walk to-day, and the day following ; for it can-
not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem
0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! which killest thy pro-
phets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee ;
how often would I have gathered thy children
together, as a hen doth gather her brood under
her wings, and ye would not ! Behold, your
house is left unto you desolate ; and verily I
say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the
time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord." I have
quoted especially these words, the most mem-
orable of which were repeated afterwards, as
they present a very accurate reflection of the
peculiar mood of our Lord's mind, and the pe-
culiar tone and texture of his ministry at this
period.

First, There was a shortness, a decisiveness,
a strength of utterance in the message sent to
Herod, which belongs to all Christ's sayings of

17& Our Lord's Ministry in Per^a.

this period, whether addressed to friends or foes.
His instructions, counsels, warnings to his own
disciples, he expressed in the briefest, most em-
phatic terms. Was he speaking to them of
faith, he said, "If ye had faith as a grain of
mustard-seed, ye would say to this sycamore-
tree. Be thou plucked up by the root, and be
thou planted in the sea, and it should obey you."
Was he inculcating humility, he said, " Which of
you having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle
will say unto him by and by, when he is come
from the field, Go and sit down to meat ? and
will not rather say unto him, Make ready where-
with I may sup, and gird thy self, and serve me
till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward
thou shalt eat and drink ? Doth he thank that
servant because he did the things that were com-
manded him? I trow not. So likewise ye,
when ye shall have done all these things which
are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable
servants, we have done that which was our
duty to do." Was he warning them against
covetousness, he did it in the story of the rich
man who, as he was making all his plans about
throwing down his barns and building greater
ones, had the words addressed to him, "Thou
fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee,

Our Lord's Ministry est Per^a. 179

then whose shall those things be which thou
hast provided ?" Was he inculcating the ne-
cessity of self-denial, an entire surrender of the
heart and life to him, he did it by turning to
the multitude that followed him, and saying,
' If any come to me, and hate not his father
and his mother, and wife, and children, and
brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever
doth not bear his cross, and come after me, he
cannot be my disciple. Whosoever he be of
you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he can-
not be my disciple."*

There was curtness even in our Lord's deal-
ings with those who, influenced with no hostile
feeling, came to him with needless and imperti-
nent inquiries. " Master," said one of the com-
pany, " speak to my brother that he may divide
the inheritance with me. And he said, Man,
who made me a judge or a divider over you ?"
" There were present some that told him of the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with
their sacrifices." It was not enough to tell them

* Luke xiv. 26, 57, 33, compared with Matthew x. 37, 38. " H'.
that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me
And he that loveth wife or daughter more than me is not worthj
of me. And he that taketh not his cross and followeth me is no
worthy of me."

180 Ouk Lord's Ministry m Per^ea.

that they were wrong if they imagined that
these men were sinners above all the Galileans
because they suffered such things. They must
have it also there told to them, "I say unto
you, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise per-
ish." Marked especially by the same feature
was our Lord's treatment of his enemies, the
Pharisees. Their hostility to him had now
reached its height. " They began to urge him
vehemently, and to provoke him to speak many
things ; laying wait for him and seeking to
catch something out of his mouth, that they
might accuse him," and " as they heard all these
things they derided him:"* He gave them in-
deed good reason to be provoked. One of
them invited him to dinner, and he went in and
sat clown to meat. The custom, whether ex-
pressed or not, that he had not first washed be-
fore dinner, gave Jesus the fit opportunity, and
in terms very different from any he had em-
ployed in Galilee, he denounced the whole body
to which his host belonged. " Now do ye Pha-
risees make clean the outside of the cup and
<he platter ; but your inward part is full of
ravening and wickedness. Ye fools ! Woe

* Luke xi. 53, 5i ; xvi . 14.

Our Lord's Ministry in Per^a.. 181

unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!
for ye are as graves which appear not, and the
men that walk over them are not aware of
them." The first notes thus sounded of that
terrible denunciation that rung through the
Courts of the Temple as our Lord turned to
take his last farewell of them, and of his
enemies.

Corresponding with this manner of speaking
was our Lord's manner of action at this time.
The three conspicuous miracles of this period
were the two Sabbath cures and the healing
of the ten lepers. Like all the others of the
same class, the two former were spontaneous
on Christ's part, wrought by him of his own
free movement, and not upon any application
or appeal. In a synagogue one Sabbath-day
he saw a woman that for eighteen years had
been bowed together, and could in no way lift
herself up. And when he saw her, " he said
unto the woman, Thou art loosed from thine
infirmity, and he laid his hands on her, and
immediately she was made straight, and glori-
fied God." Invited on another Sabbath-day
to sup with one of the chief Pharisees, as he
entered he saw before him a man which had
the dropsy, brought there perhaps on purpose

182 Our Lord's Ministry in Per^a.

to see what he would do. Turning to the
assembled guests, Jesus put a single question
to them, more direct than any he had put in
Galilee. "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath-
day ?" They said nothing, and he took the
man and healed him, and let him go." Enter-
ing into a certain village, he saw before him ten
lepers, who stood afar off, and lifted up their
voices and said, " Jesus, Master, have mercy
on us." He said to them as soon as he saw
them, " Go show yourselves unto the priests."
4 You have what you ask ; you are cured
already. Go, do what the cured are required
by your law to do.' A few words are spoken
at a distance, and all the men are at once
healed. Is there not a quick promptitude dis-
played in all these cases, as if the actor had no
words or time to spare ?

But, secondly, our Lord's thoughts were
fixed much at this time upon the future — his
own future and that of those around him. His
chief work of teaching and healing was over.
True, he was teaching and healing still, but it
was by the way. All was done as by one
that was on a journey — who had a great goal
before him, upon which his eye was intently
fixed. With singular minuteness of perspec-

Our Lord's Ministry in Teema. 183

tive, the dark close of his own earthly existence
now rose up before him. "Behold," he said
at its close, " we go up to Jerusalem, and all
things that are written by the prophets con-
cerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished.
For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles,
and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated,
and spitted on : and they shall scourge him,
and put him to death/'* "I have a baptism
to be baptized with,'7 he said at the beginning
of the period, "and how am I straitened till
it be accomplished !"f " And the third day
he shall rise again." But beyond the days,
whether of his own death or of his resurrection,
that other clay of his second coming now for
the first time is spoken of. He is pressing
upon his disciples the great duty of taking no
undue thought for the future — using the same
terms and employing the same images as he
had in the Sermon on the Mount ; but he goes
now a step further than he had done then,
closing all by saying, "Let your loins be
girded about, and your lights burning ; and ye
yourselves like unto men that wait for their
lord, when he will return from the wedding ;

* Luke xviii. 31-33. t Luke *&• 50.

184: Our Lord's Ministry in Persia.

that, when he cometh and knocketh, they may
open to him immediately. Blessed are those
servants, whom the Lord, when he cometh,
shall find watching. . - . . Be ye therefore ready
also : for the Son of man cometh at an hour
when ye think not.'7* Still in darkness as to
the true nature of the kingdom of God, irritat-
ed, it may have been, that after the announce-
ment that it had come so little should be said
about it, so few tokens of its presence should
appear, the Pharisees demanded of him when
the kingdom of God should come. He told
them that they were looking for it in an alto-
gether wrong direction. " The kingdom of
God," he said, " cometh not with observation ;
neither shall they say, Lo here ! or Lo there !
for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you,"
■ — for them, for us, for all men, one of the
most important lessons that ever could be
taught — that God's true spiritual kingdom is in
nothing outward, but lies in the inward state
and condition of the soul. Nevertheless, there
was to be much outward and visible enough,
much connected with that kingdom and his
own lordship over it, of which these Pharisees

* Luke xii. 35, 36, 37, 40.

Our Lord's Ministry in Per^a. 185

were little dreaming, and which was destined
to break upon them and upon their chil-
dren with all the terror of a terrible sur-
prise. This was in his thoughts when, after
having corrected the error of the Pharisees as
to the nature of the kingdom, he turned to his
disciples and said to them, " The days will come
when ye shall desire to see one of the days of
the Son of man, and ye shall not see it. And
they shall say unto you, See here ! or, See
there ! go not after them, nor follow them ;
for as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the
one part under heaven, shineth unto the other
part under heaven, so shall also the Son of man
be in his day. But first must we suffer many
things, and be rejected of this generation.
And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it
be also in the days of the Son of man. Like-
wise also as it was in the days of Lot ....
thus shall it be in the day when the Son of
man is revealed," — our Lord enlarging upon
this topic till in what he said upon this occasion
you have the first rough sketch of that grand
and awful picture presented in his last dis-
course to the apostles upon the ridge of Mount
Olivet, preserved in Matt. xxiv.

That section of our Lord's life and labors,

186 Our Lord's Ministry est Per^a.

of which a short sketch has been presented,
has been greatly overlooked — thrown, in fact,
into the distance and obscurity which hangs
over the region in which it was enacted. A
careful study will guide to the conviction that
in it Christ occupied a position intermediate
between the one assumed in Galilee and the
one taken up by him at Jerusalem in the days
that immediately preceded his crucifixion.

X.

THE PARABLES OF THE PER^EAN MINISTRY.

DURING that ministry in Percea whose
course and character we have traced,
our Lord delivered not fewer than ten parables
— as many within these five months as in the
two preceding years — a third of all that have
been recorded as coming from his lips. The
simple recital of them will satisfy you how fer-
tile in this respect this period was, whilst a few
rapid glances at the occasions which suggested
some of them, and at their general drift and
meaning, may help to confirm the representa-
tion already given of the peculiar features by
which that stage in our Lord's life stands
marked. We have before us here the parables
of the Good Samaritan, the Rich Fool, the Bar-
ren Fig-tree, the Great Supper, the Lost Sheep,
the Lost Piece of Money, the Prodigal Son, the
Provident Steward, Dives and Lazarus, the
Unjust Judge, the Pharisee, and the Publican.

188 The Parables of

The first of these was given as an answer to
the question, "Who is my neighbor?" and, as
inculcating the lesson of a broad and unsecta-
rian charity, might, with almost equal pro-
priety, have been spoken at any time in the
course of our Lord's ministry. It gives, how-
ever, an additional point and force to the lead-
ing incident of the story, when we think of it
as delivered a few clays after our Lord himself
had received such treatment at the hands of the
Samaritans as might have restrained him— had
he not been himself the perfect example of the
charity he inculcated, — from making a Samar-
itan the hero of the tale.

The second sprung from an application made
to Jesus, the manner of whose treatment merits
our particular regard. One of the two bro-
thers, both of whom appear to have been pre-
sent on the occasion, said to him, "Master,
speak to my brother that he divide the inheri-
tance with me." A reuuest not likely to have
been made till Christ's fairness and fearlessness,
in recoil from all falsehood and injustice, had
been openly manifested and generally recog-
nized— a request, however, grounded upon a
total misconception of the nature and objects
of his ministry. The dispute that had taken

The Per^an Ministry. 189

place between the two brothers was one for
the law of the country to settle. For Christ
to have interfered in such a case — to have
pronounced any judgment on either side,
would have been tantamount to an assump-
tion on his part of the office of the civil magis-
trate. This Jesus promptly and peremptorily
refused. "Man," said he, "who made me a
judge over you ?" More than once was Christ
tempted to enter upon the proper and pecu-
liar province of the judge. More than once
were certain difficult legal and political cases
and questions submitted to him for decision,
but he always, in the most marked and deci-
sive manner, refused to entertain them. With
the existing government and institutions of the
country — with the ordinary administration of
its laws — he never did and never would inter-
fere. You can lay your hand upon no one
law — upon no one practice, having reference
purely to man's temporal estate, which had
the sanction of the public authorities, that Je-
sus condemned or refused to comply with.
No doubt there was great tyranny being prac-
tised, there were unjust laws, iniquitous insti-
tutions in operation, but he did not take it
upon him to expose, much less to resist them.

190 The Parables of

•

For the guidance of men in all the different re-
lations in which they can be placed to one
another he announced and expounded the
great and broad, eternal and immutable, prin-
ciples of justice and of mercy. But with the
application of these principles to particular
cases he did not intermeddle. He carefully
and deliberately avoided such intermeddling,
It is possible indeed that the demand made
upon him in the instance now before us, may
not have been for any authoritative decision
upon a matter that fell properly to be deter-
mined by the legal tribunals. Had the claim
been one that could be made good at law, it
is not so likely that Jesus would have been
appealed to in the matter. The object of the
petitioner may simply have been to get Christ
to act as an umpire or arbitrator in a dispute
which the letter of the law might have reg-
ulated in one way, and the principle of equity
in another. But neither in that character
would Jesus interfere. " Man, who made me
a divider over you ?" He would not mix him-
self up with this or any other family dispute
about property. Willing as he was to earn for
himself the blessedness of the peacemaker, he
was not prepared to try and earn it in this

The Per2ean Ministry. 191

way. It was no part of his office, as head of
that great spiritual kingdom which he came to
establish upon the earth, to act as arbitrator
between such conflicting claims as these two
brothers might present. To set up the king-
dom of righteousness and peace and love in
both their hearts — that was his office. Let
that be done ; then, without either lawsuit or
arbitration, the brothers could settle the matter
between themselves. But so long as that was
not done — so long as either one or both of these
brothers was acting in the pure spirit of selfish-
ness— there was no proper room or opportunity
for Jesus to interfere ; nor would interposition,
even if it had ventured on it, have realized any
of those ends which his great mission to our
earth was intended to accomplish.

The example of non-intervention thus given
by Christ, rightly interpreted, has a wide range.
It applies to disputes between kings and subjects,
masters and servants, employers and employed.
These in the form that they ordinarily assume
it is not the office of Jesus to determine. That
he who rules over men should be just, ruling in
the fear of the Lord ; that we should obey them
that rule over us, living a quiet and peaceable
life in all godliness and honesty — this he pro-

192 The Paeables of

claims, but he does not determine what just
ruling is, nor what the limits of obedience are,
nor how, in any case of conflict, the right ad-
justment is to be made between the preroga-
tives of the crown and the liberties of the sub-
ject ; and if ever discord should arise between
oppressive rulers and exacting subjects who
with equal pride, equal selfishness, equal am-
bition, try the one to keep and the other to
grasp as much power as possible, in such a
struggle Christianity, if true to her own spirit
and to her founder's example, stands aloof, re-
fusing to take either side.

"Masters, give unto your servants that which is
just and equal." Such is the rule that Chris-
tianity lays down ; but what exactly, in any
particular case, would be the just and equal
thing to do — what would be the proper wage
for the master to offer, and the servant to re-
ceive— she leaves that to be adjusted between
masters and servants, according to the varying
circumstances by which the wages of all kinds
of labor must be regulated. It has been made
a question whether, in our great manufactur-
ing cities, capital gives to labor its fair share of
the profits. One can conceive that question
raised by the employed as against their em-

The Peilean Ministry. 193

ployers, in the spirit of a purely selfish and
aggressive discontent ; and that, so raised, it
might provoke and lead on to open collision
between the two. Here, again, in a struggle,
originating thus, and carried on in such a spirit,
Christianity refuses to take a part. She would
that employers should be more liberal, more
humane, more tenderly considerate, not only
of the wants, but of the feelings of those by
the labor of whose hands it is that their wealth
is created. She would that the employed should
be less selfish, less envious, less irritable — more
contented. It is not by a clashing of opposing
interests, but by a rivalry of just and generous
sentiments on either side, that she would keep
the balance even — the only way of doing so
productive of lasting good.

After correcting the error into which the
applicant to him had fallen, — as though the
settlement of legal questions, or family disputes
about the division of estates, lay within his
province, — Jesus took advantage of the oppor-
tunity to expose and rebuke the principle
which probably actuated both brothers, the
one to withhold and the other to demand.
Turning to the general audience by which he
was surrounded, he said, " Take heed and be-

194: The Paeables of

ware of covetousness." The word here ren-
dered " covetousness " is a peculiar and very
expressive one ; it means the spirit of greed —
that ever restless, ever craving, ever unsatisfied
spirit, which, whatever a man has, is ever
wanting more, and the more he gets still
thirsts for more. A passion which has a
strange history ; often of honest enough birth
— the child of forethought, but changing its
character rapidly with its growth — getting pre-
maturely blind — losing sight of the end in the
means — till wealth is loved and sought and
grasped and hoarded, not for the advantages it
confers, the enjoyment it purchases, but sim-
ply for itself — to gratify that lust of possession
which has seized upon the soul, and makes it
all its own. It was to warn against the en-
trance and spread and power of this passion
that Jesus spake a parable unto them, saying,
" The ground of a certain rich man brought
forth plentifully : and he thought within him-
self, saying, What shall I do, because I have
no room where to bestow my fruits ? And he
said, This will I do : I will pull down my barns,
and build greater ; and there will I bestow all
my fruits and my goods. And I will say to
my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up

The Per&an Ministry. 195

for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink
and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou
fool, this night thy soul shall be required of
thee : then whose shall those things be which
thou hast provided ? So is he that layeth up
treasure for himself, and is not rich toward
God/'

Beyond the circumstance already noted, that
the request which suggested it was one more
appropriate to a late than to an early period
of our Lord's ministry, we have nothing in the
parable, any more than in that of the Good
Samaritan, which specially connects it with the
ministry in Peraea. It is different with the
two that come next in order — that of the Bar-
ren Fig-tree and of the Great Supper.

Some who were present once told Jesus of
those Galileans whose blood Pilate had min-
gled with their sacrifices. He told them, in
reply, of the eighteen upon whom the tower in
Siloam fell, repeating, as he did so, the warn-
ing, " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise
perish." We miss the full force of the pro-
phetic knell thus sounded in their ears, in con-
sequence of the word "likewise" being often
used by us as equivalent to " also," or " as
well." The intimation, as given by Jesus, was

196 The Paeables op

that they would perish in the same manner.
The work done by the Roman sword, the
deaths caused by a single falling tower, were
brought before the mind of Jesus ; and in-
stantly he thinks of the wider sweep of that
sword and the falling of all the towers and
battlements of Jerusalem ; and when that ter-
rible calamity (of which we have here the first
obscure hints or prophecy that came from the
lips of Jesus) descended upon the Jewish peo-
ple, then to the very letter were his words ful-
filled, as thousands fell beneath the stroke of
the Roman sabres — slain as the Galileans
were, in the midst cf their Passover sacrifices
— and multitudes were crushed to death be-
neath the falling ruins of their beloved Jerusa-
lem. None but Christ himself, none of those
who listened for the first time to these warn-
ing words, could tell to what they pointed.
Forty years were to intervene before the. im-
pending doom came to be executed upon the
devoted city. No sign or token of its approach
was visible. Those around him, some of whom
were to witness and to share in the calamity,
were living in security, not knowing how rap-
idly the period of forbearance was running out,
not knowing that the time then present was

The Per^an Ministry. 197

but for them a season of respite. It was to in-
dicate how false that feeling of security was, to
give them the true key to the Lord's present
dealings with them as a people, that Jesus
told them of a fig-tree planted in a vineyard,
to which for three successive years the owner
of the vinej^ard had come seeking fruit, and
finding none ; turning to the dresser of the
vineyard, and saying, " Cut it down, why cum-
bereth it the ground ?" And the dresser of
the vineyard said to him, " Lord, let it alone
this year also, till I dig about it, and dung it :
and if it bear fruit, well ; and if not, then after
that thou shall cut it down."

And there, at the point of the respite sought
and granted, the action of the parable ceases.
Did the year of grace go by in vain ? Was
all the fresh labor of the dresser fruitless?
Was the tree at last cut down ? All about this
the parable leaves untold. It had been the
image of the end, as it crossed the Saviour's
thoughts, that had suggested the parable ; but
the time had not }^et come for his going further
in the history of the tree than the telling that
its last year of trial had arrived, and that if it
remained fruitless it was to be cut down. The
story ot the tree was, in fact, a prophetic alle-

198 The Paeaeles of

gory, meant to represent the state and pros-
pects of the Jewish people, for whom so much
had been done in the years that were past, and
so much more in the year then present : the
story stopping abruptly at the very stage which
was then being described — not without an omi-
nous foreshadowing of the dark doom in reserve
for impenitent Israel — the Israel that refused to
benefit by all the care and the toil that Jesus
had lavished on it. It is, of course, not only
easy, but altogether legitimate and beneficial,
for the broader purposes of Christian teaching.
to detach this parable from its primary con-
nexions and its immediate objects ; but, as it
ever should be the first aim in reading any of
our Lord's sayings to understand their signifi-
cance as at first uttered, in this instance we are
left in no doubt or uncertainty that it was the
generation of the Jews then living, then upon
probation, then in the last stage of their trial — ■
that the fig-tree of the parable, in the first in-
stance, was intended to represent. Regarded
so, how singularly appropriate to the time of
its delivery, in its form and structure, does the
parable appear ! It is the first of a series of
allegorical prophecies, in which the whole after-
history of the people and age to which Jesus
may be said to have himself belonged, stands

The Perean Ministry. 199

portrayed. Never before had any hint of the
outward or historical issues of his advent, so far
as the generation which rejected him was con-
cerned, dropped from the lips of Jesus. Such
allusion, we may say with reverence, would have
been mistimed had it been made earlier. It
was suitable that the great trial upon which his
mission to them put that generation should be
somewhat advanced, be drawing near its close,
before the judicial visitations, consequent upon
its treatment of the Messiah, should be declared.
And here, in the narrative of St. Luke, the -pro-
phetic announcement meets us, as made for the
first time after our Lord's labors in Galilee are
over, and he is waiting to go up to Jerusalem
to be crucified ; and, as the first hint of the
kind given, it is, as was fitting, brief and limited
in its range, throwing a clear beam of light
upon the time then present, leaving the future
enveloped with a threatening gloom.

The same things are true of the parable that
comes next in order in the pages of St. Luke.
It carries the story of the future a little fur-
ther on ; but it, too, stops abruptly. A great
supper is made, to which many had been in-
vited. The servant is. sent out to say to them
that were bidden, " Come, for all things are
now ready." With one consent, but giving

200 The Payables of

different reasons, they all excuse themselves.
The servants are sent out first to the streets
and lanes of the city, then to the highways and
hedges, to bring others in, that the table may
be filled. The narrative closes with the em-
phatic utterance of the giver of the feast —
" For I say unto you, that none of these men
that were bidden shall taste of my supper."
Here, in the first invited guests, we at once
recognize the Jews, or rather that section of
them which stood represented by their law-
yers and Pharisees, among whom Jesus was
at the time sitting. They had had the invita-
tion long in their hands, and professed to have
accepted it ; but when the time came, and the
call came from the lips of Jesus to enter the
kingdom, to partake of the prepared supper,
they all, with one consent, had made excuse.
And they were to reap this as the fruit of their
doing so — that the poor, the lame, the halt,
the blind, the wanderers of the highways and
hedges, were to be brought in, and they
were to be excluded. Of this result the par-
able gives a clear enough foreshadowing : but
it does not actually reveal the issue. It stops
with the second mission of the servants and
the declaration of a fixed purpose on the part
of the giver of the entertainment ; but it does

The Peu^an Ministry. 201

not describe the supper itself, nor tell how the
lust errand of the servant prospered, nor how
the fixed resolution of the master of the house
to exclude was carried out. Over these it
leaves the same obscurity hanging, that in the
preceding parable was left hanging over the
cutting down of the tree. There is a step
taken in advance. Beyond the rejection of the
Jews, we have the gathering in of the Gentiles
in their stead alluded to, but obviously the
main purpose of the parable as indicated by
the point at which it stops and the last speech
of the master of the house, which is left sound-
ing in our ears, is to proclaim that those who
had rejected the first invitation that Christ had
brought should, in their turn, be themselves
rejected of him. Here, then, we have another
parable fitting in with the former, and in com-
mon with it perfectly harmonizing with that
particular epoch at which St. Luke represents
it as having been delivered.

The parable of the Great Supper was spoken
at table, in the house of a chief Pharisee, in
the midst of a company of Pharisees and law-
yers. Soon afterwards, Jesus appears to us in
the centre of a very different circle. " Then
drew near unto him all the publicans and sin-

202 The Paraeles of

ners to hear him." Jesus welcomed them with
joy, devoted himself with the readiest zeal to
their instruction. The Pharisees who were
present were offended at what they had noted
or had been told about the familiarity of his
intercourse with these publicans and sinners ;
his acceptance of their invitations ; his permit-
ting them to use freedom even with his person.
" And they murmured, saying, This man re-
ceiveth sinners and eateth with them." The
Pharisees in Galilee had done the same thing ;
and that St. Luke, in the fifteenth chapter, is
not referring to the same incident that St. Mat-
thew, in his ninth chapter, has recorded, but
is relating what happened over again in Peraea,
just as it had occurred before in Galilee, is evi-
dent from this, that he himself, in his fifth
chapter, records the previous Galilean incident.
In answer to the first murmurings that broke
out against him for companying with publicans
and sinners, Jesus had contented" himself with
saying, " They that be whole need not a physi-
cian, but they which are sick. I came not to
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Now, however, he makes a longer apology
and defence. .He will let these murmurers
know what it is in the condition of these pub-

The Pee2ean Ministry. 203

licans and sinners which has drawn him to
them and fixed on them his regard — why and
for what it is that he has attached himself so
closely to them, — even to bring them to re-
pentance, win them back to God. He will
draw aside for a moment the veil that hides
the invisible world, and let it be seen what is
thought elsewhere, among the angels of God,
of that ready reception of sinners on his part
which has evoked such aversion. Christ does
this in three parables — that of the Lost Sheep,
the Lost Piece of Money, and the Lost Son.
Taken together, these three parables compose
our Lord's reply to the censure passed upon his
conduct by the Pharisees, and they do so by
presenting at once the whole history of that
recovery from their lost condition, which it was
Christ's great object to see realized in those
with whom he associated, and the effect of such
recovery as contemplated by those who, not
themselves feeling their need of it, looked
askance upon the whole procedure by which it
was realized ; for just as clearly as the history
of the loss and the recovery of the one sheep,
and the one piece of money, and the one son,
were intended to represent that conversion to
God which it was the main aim of Christ's con-

204 The Paeables of

verse with the publicans and sinners to effect,
just as clearly do the ninety-nine sheep, and
the nine pieces of money, and the elder brother
stand as representatives of these murmuring
Scribes and Pharisees — those just persons, just
in their own eyes, who needed no repentance —
thought they did not need it, and who., not un-
derstanding the nature or the necessity of the
work of conversion in others, condemned the
Saviour when engaged in this work. There is
a difference, indeed, in the three parables, so
far as they bear upon their character and con-
duct. The ninety and nine sheep and the nine
pieces of money, being either inanimate or un-
intelligent, afforded no fit opportunity of a sym-
bolic exhibition of the temper and disposition
of the Pharisees. This opportunity was afford-
ed in the third parable, and is there largely
taken advantage of. The elder brother — the
type or emblem of those against whom Jesus
is defending himself — is there brought promi-
nently out upon the stage : a full revelation of
his distrustful, spiteful, envious spirit is made.
If thirteen verses are given to the story of the
younger brother, the prodigal son, no fewer
than eight are given to that of the elder brother.
The thirteen verses, too, it is to be remembered,

Our Lord's Ministry .in Per^a. 205

cover the incidents of years ; the eight, those
of a single evening.

Naturally and properly, the deeper, livelier,
more universal interest that attaches to the
story of the younger overshadows that of the
elder brother — so deeply, indeed, that we think
and speak of the parable as that of the Prod-
igal Son ; but as originally spoken, and for
the purposes originally contemplated, the part
played by the elder brother had much more
importance assigned to it than we now are dis-
posed to give it. He is out in the field when
his younger brother is so gladly welcomed and
has the fatted calf killed to celebrate his recov-
ery. Returning in the evening, he hears the
sounds of the music and the dancing within the
happy dwelling. He calls one of the servants,
and hears from him what has happened. And
now all the fountains of selfishness and pride,
and envy and malignity, pour out their bitter
waters. He sulkily refuses to go in. His
father comes out and remonstrates with him.
But he will listen to no entreaty. He forgets
for the moment all his family relationships. He
will not call his parent father .; he will not speak
to him as to one to whom he had been indebt-
ed— rather he will charge him with injustice

206 TlIE PAKA13LES OF

and unkindness ; he will not call the once lost,
but now found one his brother — " this thy son "
is the way that he speaks of him. Notwith-
standing all his unfilial, unbrotherly, contempt-
uous arrogance, how kindly, how patiently is
he dealt with ; how mildly is the father's vindi-
cation made ; how gently is the rebuke admin-
istered ! Did it soften him, subdue him ? did
he, too, come to see how unworthy he was to
be the son of such a father ? melted into peni-
tence, did he, too, at last throw himself into
his father's arms, and in him was another lost
one found ? Just as in the parable of the Bar-
ren Fig-tree and the Great Supper, the curtain
drops as the scene should come upon the stage
in which the final fortunes of those of whom
we take this elder brother as the type should
have been disclosed. And in so closing, this
parable goes far to proclaim its birth-time as
belonging to the period when Jesus was just
beginning to lift the veil which hung over the
shrouded future of impenitent and unbelieving
Israel.

The next parable, that of the Unjust Stew-
ard, was addressed particularly, and we may
exclusively, to the disciples. It contains no
note of time by which the date of its delivery

Our Lord's Ministry in Per^a. 207

might be determined. "We are struck, how-
ever, with finding that throughout the period
now before us, it was as servants waiting and
watching for the return of their master, as
stewards to whom their absent lord has com-
mitted the care of his household during a tem-
porary departure, that the apostles and disci-
ples were generally addressed. And even as
the woes impending over doomed Israel were
now filling the Saviour's eye, the first pre-inti-
mation of them breaking forth from his lips,
even so does the condition of the mother church
at Jerusalem, in the dreary years of persecu-
tion that preceded the destruction of Jerusa-
lem, seem to have lain at this time heavy upon
his heart. It was with reference to the sor-
rows and trials that his servants should in that
interval endure, and to the wrongs inflicted on
them, that the parable of the Unjust Judge was
spoken. Its capital lesson was importunity in
prayer, but the prayer that was to go up so
often, and was at last to be heard, was prayer
from the persecuted whilst suffering beneath
the lash. This parable, therefore, like so many
of its immediate predecessors, exactly fits the
season at which St. Luke reports it as having
been spoken.

208 The Payables of

Were it not for the interest which attaches
to the question whether or not the chapters of
St. Luke's Gospel, from the 9th to the 18th,
present us with a true, and faithful, and orderly
narrative of a period in our Lord's life of which
no other of the Evangelists tell us anything, I
should not have dwelt so long upon this topic.
I shall have gained the end I had in view, how-
ever, if I have brought distinctly out to view
the five months that elapsed after Christ's fare-
well to Galilee, as spent, for the most part, in
the regions beyond the Jordan, as occupied
with a ministry bearing evident tokens of a
transition period, in which, with his face set
steadfastly towards the great decease he was to
accomplish at Jerusalem, our Lord's thoughts
were much occupied with the future — the
future which concerned himself, his followers,
the nation. The events, the miracles, the
parables of the period, are all in harmony ; and
as a whole we may safely say, that they carry
in their bosom internal evidence of their having
been rightly located by St. Luke, unsuitable as
they would have been either for any preceding
or any posterior section of our Lord's life. It
is but attributing to Christ our humanity in
true and perfect form to imagine that the end-

Our Lord's Ministry in Perzea. 209

ing of his labors in Galilee and Judea, and the
near prospect of his death, threw him into an
attitude of thought and feeling congenial to
the circumstances in which he was placed. It
was natural that the unseen and the future
should at this time absorb the seen and the
present. It may be a fancy, but I have thought,
while reading again and again the ten parables
which belong to this period, that far more fre-
quently and more vividly than ever before in
his ministry is the invisible world laid bare.
The spirit summoned that night into the imme-
diate presence of its Judge — the angels re-
joicing over each repentant returning sinner —
the bosom of Abraham upon which Lazarus is
represented as reposing — the hell into which
the soul of the rich man in dying sinks — where
in any of the preceding addresses or parables
of our Lord have we the same unfolding of the
world that lies beyond the grave ? Is it not as
one who is "himself holding closer fellowship
with that world into which he is so soon him-
self to enter that Jesus speaks ? One thing is
not a fancy, that more frequently and more
urgently than ever before does Jesus press
upon his disciples the duty of holding such
fellowship. By the story of the friend at mid-

210 Our Lord's Ministry in Per^a.

night awakened by the continued and repeated
solicitations of his neighbor, by that of the un-
just judge moved to redress her wrongs by the
simple importunity of the widow, by that of
the prayer of the poor publican heard at once
and answered, by the appeal to their own gen-
erosity as fathers in the treatment of their
children, did Jesus at this time seek to draw
his disciples to the throne of grace, and keep
them there, praying on in the assurance that
earnest, renewed, repeated petitions offered in
sincerity and faith shall never go up to God in
vain. And who is he that encourages us thus
to pray — fhat gives us the assurance that our
prayers will be answered ? Is he not our own
great and gracious Advocate, who takes our
imperfect petitions as they spring from our de-
filed lips, our divided and sinful hearts, and
turns them into his own all-powerful, ill-pre-
vailing pleadings as he presents them to the
Father ?

XL

THE GOOD SAMARITAN.*

• • T3EHOLD, a certain lawyer stood up" —
■JL-? in all likelihood within some synagogue
upon a Sabbath-day. In rising to put a ques-
tion to Jesus, he was guilty of no impertinent
intrusion. Jesus had assumed the office of a
public teacher, and it was by questions put and
answered that this office was ordinarily dis-
charged. This lawyer "stood up and tempted
him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life ?" His object might have been to
perplex did entangle — to involve Christ in a
difficulty from which he perceived or hoped that
he would be unable to extricate himself. Ques-
tions of this kind were often put to Jesus, their
very character and construction betraying their
intent. But the question of the lawyer is not one
of this nature. Something more than a mere idle

* Luke x. 25-29.

212 The Good Samamtan.

curiosity, or a desire to test the extent of Christ's
capacity or knowledge, appears to have prompt-
ed it. It is not presented in the bare abstract
form. It is not, " Master, what should be done
that eternal life be inherited?" but, "Master,
what should I do to inherit eternal life ? It
looks as if it came from one feeling a true,
deep, and personal interest in the inquiry.

The manner in which our Lord entertained
it confirms this impression. Questions of many
kinds from many quarters were addressed to
Jesus. With one or two memorable excep-
tions, they were all answered, but in different
ways ; whenever any insidious and sinister
purpose lay concealed beneath apparent hom-
age, the answer was alwa}rs such as to show
that the latent guile lay open as day to his
eye. But there is nothing of that description
here. In the first instance, indeed, he will
make the questioner go as far as he can in
answering his own question. He will tempt —
i. e., try or prove him in turn. Knowing that
he is a scribe well instructed in the law, he
will throw him back upon his own knowledge.
Before saying anything about eternal life, or
the manner of its inheritance, Jesus says,
"What is written in the law? how readest

The Good Samaettan. 213

thou ?" It is altogether remarkable that in
answer to a question so very general as this — •
one which admitted of such various replies — -
this man should at once have laid his hand upon
two texts, standing far apart from each other
— the first occurring early in Deuteronomy,
the second far on in Leviticus — texts having no
connection with each other in the outer form
or letter of the law, to which no peculiar or
pre-eminent position is there assigned, which
are nowhere brought into juxtaposition, nor
are quoted as if, when brought together, they
formed a summary or compound of the whole ;
the two very texts, in -fact, which, on an after
occasion, in answer to another scribe, our
Lord himself cited as the two upon which all
the law and the prophets hung. The man
who, overlooking the whole mass of ceremonial
or ritualistic ordinances as being of altogether
inferior consideration, not once to be taken
into account when the question was one as to
a man's inheriting eternal life, who so readily
and so confidently selected these two command-
ments as containing the sum and substance of
the whole, gave good proof how true his read-
ing of the law was. "And Jesus said to him,
Thou hast answered right : this do, and thou

214 The Good Samaritan.

shalt live." ' Take but thine own right read-
ing of the law, fulfill aright those two great
precepts, Love the Lord thy God with all
thine heart, Love thy neighbor as thyself, and
thou shalt live ; live in loving and in serving,
or if thou readiest not in this way the life thou
aimest at, thou wilt at least, by the very
failure, be taught to look away from the pre-
cepts to the promises, and so be led to the
true source and fountain of eternal life in the
free grace of the Father through me the Son.'

Trying to escape from the awkward position
of one out of whose own lips so simple and sa-
tisfactory a reply to his own question had been
extracted — desiring to justify himself for still
appearing as a questioner, by showing that
there was yet something about which there re-
mained a doubt — be said to Jesus, "And who
is my neighbor?" We may fairly assume that
one so well read as this man was as to the true
meaning of the law, was equally well read as to
the popular belief and practice regarding it.
He knew what interpretation was popularly put
on the expression, " thy neighbor," which stood
embodied in the practice of his countrymen.
He knew with what supercilious contempt they
looked down upon the whole Gentile world

The Good Samaritan. 21£

around them — calling -them the "uncircum-
cised," the "dogs," the "polluted," the "un-
clean,"— with what a double contempt they re-
garded the Samaritans living by their side. He
knew that it was no part of the popular belief
to regard a Samaritan as a neighbor. So far
from this, the Jew would have no dealings with
him, cursed him publicly in his synagogue, would
not receive his testimony in a court of justice,
prayed that he might have no portion in the
resurrection. He knew all this — had himself
been brought up to the belief and practice. But
he was not satisfied with it. Along with that
fine instinct of the understanding which had
enabled him to extract the pure and simple es-
sence out of the great body of the Jewish code,
there was that finer instinct of the heart which
taught him that it was within too narrow bounds
that the love to our neighbor had been limited.
He saw and felt that these bounds should be
widened ; but how far? — upon what principle,
and to what extent? .Anxious to know this, he
says, "And who is my neighbor?"

Christ answers by what we take to be the
recital of an incident that had actually oc-
curred. A fictitious story — a parable invented
for the occasion — would not so fully have an-

216 The Good Samabitan.

swered the purpose he had in view. A cer-
tain man went down from Jerusalem to Jeri-
cho. We are not told who or what he was ;
but the conditions and object of the narrative
require that he was a Jew. The road from
Jerusalem to Jericho — though short, and at
at certain seasons of the year much frequented
— was yet lonely and perilous to the last de-
gree, especially to a single and undefended
traveller. It passes through the heart of the
eastern division of the wilderness of Judea,
and runs for a considerable space along the
abrupt and winding sides of a deep and rocky
ravine, offering the greatest facilities for con-
cealment and attack. From the number of
robberies and murders committed in it, Jews
of old called it "the Bloody Road," and it re-
tains its character still. We travelled it,
guarded by a dozen Arabs, who told, by the
way, of an English party that the year before
had been attacked and plundered and stripped,
and we were kept in constant alarm by the
scouts sent out beforehand announcing the dis-
tant sight of dangerous-looking Bedouin. All
the way from Bethany to the plain of the Jor-
dan is utter solitude — one single ruin, perhaps
that of the very inn to which the wounded Jew

The Good Samaritan. 217

was carried, being the only sign of human hab-
itation that meets the eye. Somewhere along
this road, the solitary traveller of whom Jesus
Bpeaks is attacked. Perhaps he carries his all
along with him, and, unwilling to part with it,
stands upon his defence, wishing to sell life and
property as dearly as he can. Perhaps he car-
ries but little — nothing that the thievish band
into whose hands he falls much value. Whether
it is that a struggle has taken place, or that
exasperatron at disappointment whets their
wrath, the robbers of the wilderness strip their
victim of his raiment, wound him, and leave
him there half dead. As he lies in that con-
dition on the roadside, first a priest, and then
a Levite approaches. A single glance is suf-
ficient for the priest ; the Levite stops, and
takes a longer, steadier look. The effect in
either case is the same — abhorrence and aver-
sion. As men actuated by some other senti-
ment beyond that of mere insensibility, they
shrink back, putting as great a distance as
they can between them and the poor naked
wounded man ; as if there were pollution in
proximity — as if the very air around the man
were infected — as if to go near him, much
more to touch, to lift, to handle him, were to

218 The Good Samaeitan.

be defiled. To what are we to attribute this ?
To sheer indifference — to stony-hearted inhu-
manity ? That might explain their passing
without a feeling of sympathy excited or a
hand of help held out, but it will not explain
the quick and sensitive recoil — the passing by
on the other side. Is it then the bare horror
of the sight that drives them back ? If there
be something to excite horror, surely there is
more to move pity. That naked, quivering
body, those gaping, bleeding wounds, the pale
and speechless lips, the eyes so dull and heavy
with pain, yet sending out such imploring looks
— where is the human heart, left free to its
own spontaneous actings, they could fail to
touch ?

But these men's hearts — the hearts of the
priest and Levite — are not left thus free :
not that their hearts are destitute of the com-
mon sympathies of our nature — not that their
breasts are steeled against every form and
kind of human woe — not that, in other circum-
stances, they would see a wounded, half-dead
neighbor lying, and leave him unpitied and
unhelped. No ! but because their hearts — a?
tender, it may have been, by nature as thost
of others — have been trained in the school of

The Good Samakitan. 219

national and religious bigotry, and have been
taught there, not the lesson of sheer and down-
right inhumanity, but of that narrow exclusive-
ness which would limit all their sympathies
and all their aid to those of their own country
and their own faith. The priest and the Levite
have been up at Jerusalem, discharging, in
their turn, their offices in the Temple. They
have got quickened afresh there all the preju-
dices of their calling ; they are returning to
Jericho, with all their prejudices strong within
their breasts ; they see the sad sight by the
way ; they pause a moment to contemplate it.
Had it been a brother priest, a brother Levite,
a brother Jew that lay in that piteous plight,
none readier to help than they ; but he is
naked, there is nothing on him or about him to
tell who or what he is — he is speechless, and
can say nothing for himself. He may be a
hated Edomite, he may be a vile Samaritan,
for aught that they can tell. The possibility
of this is enough. Touch, handle, help such a
man ! they might be doing thereby a far
greater outrage to their Jewish prejudices than
they did to the mere sentiment of indiscrimin-
ate pity by passing him by, and so they leave
him as they find him, in haste to get past the

220 The Good Samaritan.

dangerous neighborhood, to congratulate them-
selves on the wonderful escape they had made
■ — for the wounds of the poor wretch were
fresh, and bleeding freely — it could have been
but shortly before they came up that the catas-
trophe had occurred ; had they started but an
hour or two earlier from Jerusalem his fate
might have been theirs. Glad at their own
good fortune, they hurry on, finding many
an excuse beside the real one for their neglect.
How then are we exactly to characterize
their conduct ? It was a triumph of prejudice
over humanity — the very kind of error and of
crime against which Jesus wished to guard the
inquiring lawyer. And it was at once with
singular fidelity to nature, and the strictest per-
tinence to the question with which he was deal-
ing, and to the occasion that called it forth, that
it was in the conduct of a priest and of a Le-
vite that this triumph stood displayed — for
were they not the fittest types and representa-
tives of that malign and sinister influence which
their religion, — misunderstood and misapplied,
— had exerted over the common sympathies of
humanity ? Had they read aright their own
old Hebrew code, it would have taught them
quite a different lesson. Its broad and genial

The Good Samakitan. 221

humanity is one of the marked attributes by
which, as compared with that of every other
religion then existing, theirs was distinguished.
" I will have mercy and not sacrifice," was the
motto which its great Author had inscribed
upon its forehead. Its weightier matters were
judgment and mercy, and faith and love. It
had taken the stranger under its special and
benignant protection. Twice over it had pro-
claimed, " Thou shalt not see thy brother's ass
or thy brother's ox fall down by the way and
hide thyself from them — thou shalt surely help
him to lift them up again." And was a man
not much better than an ass or an ox ? And
should not this priest and Levite — had they
read aright their own Jewish law — have lifted
up again their prostrate bleeding brother ? But
they had misread that law. They had miscon-
ceived and perverted that segregation from all
the other communities of the earth which it
had taught the Jewish people to cultivate. In-
stead of seeing in this temporary isolation the
means of distributing the blessings of the Mes-
siah's kingdom wide over all the earth, they
had regarded it as raising them to a position of
proud superiority from which they might say to
every other nation, " Stand back, for we are

I

222 The Good Samaritan.

holier than you." And once perverted mus,
the whole strength of their religious faith went
to intensify the spirit of nationality, and inflame
it into a passion, within whose close and sultry
atmosphere the lights even of common human
kindness were extinguished. It was in a priest
and in a Levite that we should expect to see
this spirit carried out to its extreme degree, as
it has been always in the priestly caste that the
fanatical piety which has trampled under foot
the kindliest sentiments of humanity has shown
itself in its darkest and most repulsive form.

After the priest and Levite have gone by, a
certain Samaritan approaches. He too is ar-
rested. He too turns aside to look upon this
pitiable spectacle. For aught that he can tell,
this naked wounded man may be a Jew. There
were many Jews and but few Samaritans tra-
velling ordinarily by this road. The chances
were a thousand to one that he was a Jew.
And this Samaritan must have shared in the
common feelings of his people towards the Jews
■ ■ — hatred lepaying hatred. But he thinks not
of distinction of race or faith. The sight be-
fore him of a human being — a brother man in
the extremity of distress — swallows up all such
thoughts. As soon as he sees him he has com

The Good Samakitan. 223

passion on him. He alights — strips off a por-
tion of his own raiment — brings ont the oil ami
the wine that he had provided for his own com-
fort by the way — tenderly binds up the wounds
— gently lifts the body up and places it on his
own beast — moves with such gentle pace away
as shall least exasperate the recent wounds.
Intent upon his task, he forgets his own affairs
— forgets the danger of lingering so long in such
a neighborhood — is not satisfied till he reaches
the inn by the roadside. Having clone so much,
may he not leave him now ? No, he cannot
part from him till he sees what a night's rest
will do. The morning sees his rescued brother
better. Now he may depart. Yes, but not till
he has done all he can to secure that he be pro-
perly waited on till all danger is over. He may
be a humane enough man, the keeper of this
inn, but days will pass before the sufferer can
safely travel, and it may not be safe or wise to
count upon the continuance of his kindness.
The Samaritan gives the innkeeper enough to
keep his guest for six or seven days, and tells
him that whatever he spends more will be re-
paid. Having thus done all that the most
thoughtful kindness could suggest to promote
and secure recovery, he goes to bid his rescued

224 The Good Samaeitan.

brother farewell. Perhaps the good Samaritan
leaves him in utter ignorance of who or what
he was. Perhaps those pale and trembling lips
are still unable to articulate his thanks — but
that parting look in which a heart's whole swell-
ing gratitude goes out — it goes with him and
kindles a strange joy. He never saw the sun
look half so bright — he never saw the plain
of Jordan look half so fair — a happier man
than he never trod the road to Jericho. True,
he had lost a day, but he had saved a brother ;
and while many a time in after life the look of
that stark and bleeding body as he first saw it
lying on the roadside would come to haunt his
fancy — ever behind it would there come that
look of love and gratitude to chase the spectral
form away, and fill his heart with light and joy.
Here too is a triumph, not one. however, of
prejudice over humanity, but of humanity over
prejudice. For it were idle to think that it
was -because of any superiority over the priest
and the Levite in his abstract ideas of the sphere
of neighborhood, and of the claims involved in
simple participation of humanity, that this Sama-
tan acted as he did. No, it was simply because
he obeyed the impulses of a kind and loving
heart, and that these were strong enough to

The Good Samaritan. 225

lift him above all those prejudices of tribe and
caste and faith, to which he, equally with the
Jew, was liable.

And was there not good reason for it, that in
the records of our Christian faith, in the teach-
ings of its Divine Author, one solemn warning
of this kind should be lifted up — one illustrious
example of this kind should be exhibited ? Our
Redeemer came to establish another and closer
bond of brotherhood than the earth before had
known, to knit all true believers in the pure
and holy fellowship of a common faith, a com-
mon hope, a common heirship of eternal life
through him. But he would have us from the
beginning know that this bond, so new, so
sacred, so divine, was never meant to thwart
or violate that other broader universal tie that
binds the whole family of our race together,
that makes each man the neighbor of every
other man that tenants this earthly globe.
Christianity, like Judaism, has been perverted,
— perverted so as seriously to interfere with,
sometimes almost entirely to quench, the senti-
ment of an universal philanthropy ; but it has»
been so only when its true genius and spirit
have been misapprehended ; for of all influ-
ences that have ever descended upon our earth

226 The Good Samaritan.

none has ever done so much to break do-»%n
the walls of separation, that differences of
country, language, race, religion, have raised
between m&n and man, and to diffuse the spirit
of that brotherly love which overleaps all these
temporary and artificial fences and boundary
lines — which, subject to no law of limits, is a
law itself — which, like the air and light of
heaven, diffuses itself eveiw where around over
the broad field of humanity — tempering all,
uniting all, brightening all, smoothing asperities,
harmonizing discords, pouring a healing balm
into all the rankling sores of life.

" Which now of the three," said Jesus to
the lawyer, " was neighbor to him that fell
among the thieves ?"

Ashamed to say plainly " The Samaritan,"
yet unwilling or unable to exhibit any hesita-
tion in his reply, he said, "He that showed
mercy on him," Then said Jesus unto him,
" Go, and do thou likewise." It is not " Listen
and applaud," it is " Go and do." If there be
airything above another that distinguishes the
conduct of the good Samaritan, it is its
thoroughly practical character. He wasted no
needless sympathy, he shed no idle tears.
There are wounds that may be dressed,— *ie

The Good Samaritan. 227

puts forth his own hand immediately to the
dressing of them. There is a life that may be
saved, — he sets himself to use every method
by which it may be saved. He gives more
than time, more than money : he gives per-
sonal service. And that is the true human
charity that shows itself in prompt, efficient,
self- forgetful, self-sacrificing help. You can
get many soft, susceptible, sentimental spirits
to weep over any scene or tale of woe. But it
is not those who will weep the readiest over
the sorrow will do the most to relieve it.
Sympathy has its own selfishness ; there is a
luxury in the tears that it loves idly to indulge.
Tears will fill the eye — should fill the eye — but
the hand of active help will brush them away,
that the eye may see more clearly what the
hand has to do. Millions have heard or read
the tale of the Good Samaritan. Their eyes
have glistened and their hearts have been all
aglow in approving, applauding sympathy ;
but of all these millions, how many are there
who imitate the example given, who have
given a day from their business to a suffering
brother, who have waited by the sick, and
with their own hand have ministered to his
wants ?

228 The Good Samaritan.

The beauty and force of that special lesson
which the story of the Good Samaritan was in-
tended to convey is mightily enhanced as we
remember how recently our Lord himself had
suffered from the intolerance of the Samaritans ;
only a few days before, we know not how few,
having been refused entrance into one of their
villages. He himself then gave an exhibition
of the very virtue he designed to inculcate.
But why speak of this as any single minor act
of universal love to mankind on his part ?
Was not his life and death one continuous
manifestation of that love ? Yes, bright as
that single act of the Good Samaritan shines
in the annals of human kindness, all its bright-
ness fades away in the full blaze of that love
of Jesus, which saw not a single traveller, but
our whole race, cast forth naked, bleeding,
dying, and gave not a day of his time, nor a
portion of his raiment, but a whole lifetime of
service and of suffering, that they might not
perish, but have everlasting life.

XII.

THE LORD'S PRAYER.*

AT some time and in some place of which
we must be content to remain ignorant,
Jesus had gone apart from his disciples to pray.
They had noticed his doing so frequently be-
fore ; but there was a peculiarity in this case.
He had either separated himself from them by
so short a distance, or they had come upon him
afterwards so silently and unobserved, that they
stood and listened to him as he prayed. Per-
haps they had never previously overheard our
Lord when engaged in private devotion. The
impression made on them was so deep, the
prayer that they had been listening to was so
unlike any that they themselves had ever
offered^ — if that and that only be prayer, they
feel they know so little how to do it — that, on
the impulse of the moment, one of them,
when Jesus had ceased, said to him, " Lord,

* Luke xi. 1-13.

230 The Lord's Pkayek.

teach us to pray, as John also taught his disci-
ples." We do not stand in the same peculiar
external circumstances with him who preferred
this request, but the same need is ours. There
is access still for us into the presence of our
Redeemer, nor is there in coming to him one
petition that should spring more quickly to our
lips, one that can come from them more appro-
priately, than this — " Lord, teach us to pray."
To pray is to realize the presence of the Su-
preme— to come into the closest possible con-
nexion with the greatest of Beings. To pray is
to lay our imperfect tribute of acknowledg-
ment at his feet — to supplicate for that which
we know he only can bestow — to bring our sin
to him, so that it may be forgiven — our wants
to him, so that he may supply them as seems
best in his sight. What is our warrant for
making such approach ? how may it best be
made ? what should we ask for ? and how should
we ask for it ? None can answer these ques-
tions for us as Jesus could. How gladly, then,
should we welcome, and how carefully should
we study such answers as he has been pleased
to give !

On bringing together all that Christ has
declared in the way of precept, and illustrated

The Lokd's Prayer. 231

in the way of example, I think it will appear
that as there is no one duty of the religious
life of such pre-eminent importance in its
direct bearing on our spiritual estate, so there
is no one about the manner of whose right
discharge fuller instructions have been left by
him. Thus, in the instance now before us, in
answer to the request presented to him, he at
once recited a prayer which stands as the pat-
tern or model of all true prayer. Without en-
tering into a minute examination of the separ-
ate clauses of this prayer, let me crave your
attention to three of the features by which
it is pre-eminently distinguished.

1. Its shortness and simplicity. It is very
plain ; not a part or petition of it which, as
as soon as it is capable of praying, a child can-
not easily understand. It is very brief, occu-
pying but a minute or two in the utterance ;
so that there is not a season or occasion for
prayer in which it might not be employed.
There is no ambiguity, no circumlocution, no
expansion, no repetition here. It is through-
out the direct expression of desire ; that desire
in each case clothing itself in the simplest,
coinpactest form of speech.

In the Sermon on the Mount, when Jesus

232 The Lord's Peayer.

first repeated this prayer, he offered it in con-
trast with the tedious amplifications and reiter-
ations of which the Jewish and heathen
prayers were then ordinarily composed. The
Jews, as the heathen of old, as the Mussulmans
still, had their set hours throughout the day
for prayer ; and so fond were they of exhibit-
ing the punctuality and precision and devout-
ness with which the duty was discharged, that
they often arranged it so that the set hour
should find them in some public place. Such
practice, as altogether contrary to the spirit
and object of true devotion, as part of that
mere dead formalism which it was the great
object of his teaching to unmask, Jesus utterly
condemned. " When thou prayest, thou shalt
not be as the hypocrites ; for they love to
pray standing in the synagogues and corners
of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy
closet ; and when thou hast shut the door,
pray to thy Father which is in secret ; and thy
Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee
openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repe-
titions, as the heathen do ; for they think that
they shall be heard for their much speaking.

The Lord's Prayer. 233

Be not ye therefore like unto them : for your
Father knoweth what things ye have need of
before ye ask him. After this manner pray ye."
It was as an antidote to the kind of prayers
then generally employed, as well as a pattern
specimen for after use within the Church, that
Jesus then proceeded to repeat the prayer
which has been called by his name. It was
not to lie by or be deposited as a mere stan-
dard measure by which other prayers were to
be tried. It was to be used — to be repeated.
When, many months after its first recital, it
was said to Jesus, " Lord, teach us to pray, as
John also taught his disciples," he was not sat-
isfied with saying, " Pray generally in such a
mode or style as this ;" he prescribed the very
words — " When ye pray, say," and he repeated
the very prayer that he formerly had spoken.
Not that he put much or any importance upon
the exact words to be employed. In three out
of the six petitions of which the prayer is made
up, there are variations in the words, not
enough to make the slightest difference in the
meaning, but sufficient to show that it was not
simply by a repetition of the words that the
prayer was truly said. With rigorous exact-
ness, this prayer might be said over and over

234 T1e Lokd's Prayer.

again till it became a very vain repetition —
all the vainer, perhaps, because of the very
excellence of the form that was so abused.
But over and over again — day by day — it
might be repeated without any such abuse.
All depends upon how you use it. Enter into
its meaning — put your own soul and their own
sense into the words — let it be the true and ear-
nest desires of your "heart that you thus
breathe into the ear of the Eternal — and you
need not fear how often you repeat it, or think
that because you say the same words over
again you sin. Our Lord himself, within the
compass of an hour, repeated the same prayer
thrice in the garden. Use it, however, as a
mere form, with no other idea than that be-
cause it has been " authoritatively prescribed"
it ought to be employed, — a single such use
of it is sin.

2. The order and proportion of the peti-
tions in the Lord's prayer. It naturally divides
itself into two equal parts ; the one embracing
the first three petitions, the other the three
remaining ones — these parts palpably distin-
guished from each other by this, that in the
former the petitions all have reference to God.
in the latter to man. In the former the

The Lord's Prayer. 235

thoughts and desires of the petitioner are all
engrossed with the name, the kingdom, the will
of the great Being addressed ; in the latter with
his own wants, and sins, and trials. It would
be carrying the idea of the Lord's prayer as a
pattern, or model, to an illegitimate length,
were we to say that because about one-half of
the prayer is devoted to the first of these
objects, and one half to the other, our prayers
should be divided equally between them. Yet
surely there is something to be learned from
the precedence assigned here to the great things
which concern the name, and kingdom, and will
of our Heavenly Father, as well as from the
space which these occupy in this prayer. You
have but to reflect a moment on the structure
and proportion of parts in any of our ordinary
prayers, whether in private or in public, and
especially on the place and room given in them
to petitions touching the coming of God's king-
dom, and the doing of his will on earth as it is
done in heaven, to be satisfied as to the con-
trast which in this respect they present to the
model laid down by Christ himself. Our pray-
ers, such as they are, with all their weaknesses
and imperfections, will not, we are grateful to
remember, be cast out because we yield to a

236 The Lord's Prayer.

strong natural bias, and press into the fore-
ground, and keep prominent throughout, those
personal necessities of our spiritual nature
which primarily urge us to the throne of grace.
Our Heavenly Father not only knoweth what
things we need before we ask them, he knoweth
also what the things are, the need of which
presses first and heaviest upon our hearts.
Nor will he close his ear to any returning,
repentant, hungering, and thirsting spirit, sim-
ply because these are pressed first and most
urgently upon his regard. Is it not well, nev-
ertheless, that we should be reminded, as the
prayer dictated by our Saviour so emphatically
does, that selfishness may and does creep into
our very prayers, and that the perfect form
of all right approach, all right address, to the
Divinity, is that in which the place of supremacy
which of right belongs to Him is duly and be-
comingly recognized. More especially should
it be so in all prayers that go up from this sin-
ful earth to those pure and holy heavens : for
if it be true — as the whole body of the prayer
prescribed by Jesus teaches us that it is — that
we are living in a world where God's name is
not hallowed as it ought to be, is often dishon-
ored and profaned — in a world where God's

The Lord's Prayer. 237

kingdom of justice and holiness and love is not
universally established, where another and
quite opposite kingdom contests with it the
empire of human souls — in a world where
other wills than that of God are busily at wcrk,
not always consenting to or working under his,
but resisting and opposing it ; — then surely if
the name, the kingdom, the will of our Father
which is in heaven were as dear to us as they
ought to be, first and above all things besides,
we should desire that his name should be hal-
lowed, his kingdom should come, his will
should be done on earth as it is done in heaven.
Let us then as often as we use this prayer
receive with meekness the rebuke it casts upon
that tendency and habit of our nature which
leads us even in our prayers to put our own
things before the things of our Heavenly
Father ; and let us urge our laggard spirits
onward and upward from the sense and sight
of our personal necessities, till, filled with ado-
ration, and gratitude, and love, before we even
make mention before him of a single individual
want, we be ready with a true heart to say,
'' Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy name ; thy kingdom come ; thy will be
done in earth as it is done in heaven."

238 The Lord's Prayer.

And whilst receiving the lesson clearly to be
gathered from the place and space occupied by
the first three petitions of our Lord's prayer,
let its fourth petition, in its sequence, and in its
solitariness, and in its narrowness, proclaim to
us the place even among our own things which
earthly and bodily, as compared with spiritual
provisions, possessions, enjoyments, ought to
have. Is it without a meaning that we are taught
to pray first, "Thy will be done, "and then im-
mediately thereafter," Give us this day our daily
bread ?" The bread is to be asked that by it
the life may be preserved, and the life is to be
preserved that it may be consecrated to the doing
of God's will. According to the tenor of the
pra}^er and the connexion of these two petitions,
we are not at liberty to ask for the daily bread
irrespective of the object to which the life and
strength which it prolongs and imparts are to
be devoted. It were a vain and hollow thing
in any of us to pray that God's will be done, as
in heaven, so in earth, if we do not desire and
strive that it should be done as by others so
also by ourselves. And it is as those who do
thus desire, and are thus striving, that we are
alone at all likely to proceed to say, " Give us
this day our daily bread." A natural and

The Loed's Peayee. 239

moderate request, we may be ready to think,
which all men will at once be prepared to pre-
sent to God. Yet not so easy to present in the
spirit in which Jesus would have us to offer it.
Not so easy to feel our continued and entire
dependence on God for those very things that
we are most tempted to think we have acquired
by our own exertions, and secured to ourselves
and our families by our own skill and prudence.
Not so easy to pray for a competent portion of
the things of this life, only that by the manner
of our using and enjoying them the will of our
Heavenly Father, his own gracious purpose in
placing us where we are placed, and in giving
us all that we possess, may be carried out. Not
so eas}' to limit thus our desires and efforts in
this direction, and to be satisfied with whatever
the portion be that God pleases to bestow.
Not so easy to renew this petition, day by day,
as conscious that all which comes each day comes
direct from the hand of God — comes to those
who have no right or title to claim it as their own
— who should ask and receive it continually aa
a gift. Not so easy to narrow the petition to
the day, leaving to-morrow in God's hands
The simplest and easiest, though it seems at
first, of all the six petitions, perhaps this one

210 The Lord's Pkayes.

about our daily bread is one that we less fre-
quently than any other present in the true
spirit. It stands there in the very centre of the
prayer — the only one bearing upon our earthly
condition — preceded and followed by others,
with whose spirit it must or ought to be im-
pregnated— from which it cannot be detached.
Secular in its first aspect, in this connexion
how spiritual does it appear !

3. The fullness, condensedness, comprehen-
siveness, universality of the prayer. Of course
it never was intended to confine within the
limits of its few sentences the free spirit of
prayer. The example of our Lord himself, of
the apostles of the Church in all ages, has
taught us how full and varied are the utter-
ances of the human heart, when it breathes
•tself out unrestrainedly unto God in prayer.
Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty
— ample the freedom and wide the range that
the Holy Spirit takes when he throws the
human spirit into the attitude, and sustains it
in the exercise of prayer — prompting those
yearnings which cannot be uttered, those de-
sires and affections which words multiplied to
the uttermost fail adequately to express, hi
the past history, in the existing condition of

The Loed's Peayee. 241

every human soul, there is an infinitude of
individual peculiarities. To forbid all refer-
ences to these, all manifestations of these in
prayer — to tie every one down at every sea-
son to pray as every one else — to allow no
minute confession of particular transgressions,
no recital of the circumstances in which they
were committed, aggravations by which they
were accompanied, no acknowledgment of
special mercies, nor glad and grateful recount-
ing how singularly appropriate and satisfying
they had been — to cramp down within one dry
and narrow mould all the plaints of sorrow, the
moanings cf penitence, the aspirations of desire,
the beatings of gratitude, the breathings of
love, the exultations of joy and hope, which
fill the human heart, and which, in moments
of filial trust, it would pour out into the ear of
the Eternal — this were indeed to la}' the axe
at the root of all devotion. But while plead-
ing for the very fullest liberty of prayer, let us
not be insensible of the great benefit there is
in ever and anon stepping out of that circle in
which our own personal and particular sorrows
and sins shape and intensify our praj'ers, into
that upper and wider region in which, laying
all those specialities for the time aside, we join

242 The Lord's Prayer.

the great company of the prayerful in all ages,
in those few and simple, yet all-embracing peti-
tions which they and we, and all that have
gone before, and all that shall come after, unite
in presenting to the Hearer and Answerer of
prayer. And this is what we do in repeating
the Lord's prayer. In it we have, — stripped
of all secondary or adventitious elements, the
concentrated spirit and essence of prayer, a
brief epitome of all the topics that prayer,
should embrace, a condensed expression of all
those desires of the heart that should go up to
God in prayer. It is not a prayer this for any
one period of life — for any one kind of charac-
ter— for any one outward or inward condition
of things — for any one country — for any one
age. The child may lisp its simple sentences
as soon as it knows how to pray ; it comes
with no less fitness from the wrinkled lips of
age. The penitent in the first hour of his
return to God, the struggler in the thick of the
spiritual conflict, the believer in the highest
soarings of his faith and love, may take up and
use alike this prayer. The youngest, the old-
est, the simplest, the wisest, the most sinstained,
the most saintly, can find nothing here unsuita-
ble, unseasonable. It gathers up into one

The Lord's Piiayer. 243

what they all can and should unite in saying as
they bend in supplication before God. And
from the day when first it was published on
the mount, as our Lord's own directory for
prayer, down through all these eighteen centu-
ries, it has been the single golden link running
through the ages that has bound together in
one the whole vast company of the prayerful.
Is there a single Christian now living upon
earth — is there one among the multitude of the
redeemed now praising God in heaven, who
never prayed this prayer ? I believe not one.
It is not then, as isolated spirits, alone in our
communion with God, it is as units in that un-
numbered congregation of those who have
bent, are bending, will bend, before the Throne,
that we are to take up and to use this prayer.
Not "my Father,'"' but "our Father," is its
key-note. Let it calm, and soothe, and elevate
our spirits, as, leaving all that belongs to our
own little separate circle of thoughts, and
doubts, and fears, and hopes, and joys, behind,
we rise to take our place in this vast company,
and to mingle our prayers with theirs.

And to what is it that the Lord's pra}Tcr
owes especially the universality of its embrace
— the omnipotence of its power ? To the spe-

244 The Lord's Peayer.

cial character in which it presents God to all
■ — the peculiar standing before him into which
it invites all to enter. It is not to him as the
great I am, the Omnipotent, the Omnipresent
Creator, and Lord of All ; it is not to him
as dwelling in the light that no man can ap-
proach to — as clothed with all the attributes
of majesty and power, and justice and truth
and holiness, the Moral Governor of the Uni-
verse— that it invites us to come. No, but to
him as our Father in heaven — a Father regard-
ing us with infinite pity, loving us with an
everlasting love, willing and waiting to bestow,
able and ready to help us. Is is to him who
taught us this prayer that we owe the revela-
tion of God to us as such a Father. More than
that, it is to Christ we owe the establishment
of that close and endearing connection of son-
ship to the Father — a connection which it only
remains for us to recognize, in order to enter
into possession of all its privileges and joys.
He who taught this prayer to his disciples,
taught them, too, that no man can come unto
the Father but through him. It were a great
injustice unto him, if, because he has not
named his own name in this prayer, we should
forget that it is he who, by his Incarnation and

The Lord's Prayer. 245

Atonement, has so linked God and man, earth
and heaven, together, that all those sentiments
of filial trust and confidence which this prayer
expresses, may and should be cherished by
every individual member of our race. There
is not a living man who may not use this
prayer, for while it is true that no man cometh
to the Father but through Christ, it is equally
true — indeed the one truth is involved in the
other — that all men, every man, may now so
come ; not waiting till he is sure that he is a
child of God, has such faith in God, or grati-
tude to God, or willingness to serve God as he
knows a child should cherish ; not grounding
his assurance of God's Fatherhood to him on
his sonship to God — no, but welcoming the
assurance given to him in and by Jesus Christ,
that God is his Father, and using that very
Fatherhood as his plea in his first and last, his
every approach to him. To each and every
one of the multitude upon the mountain-side
of Galilee — to them just as they were — to
them simply as sons of men, partakers of that
humanity which he also shared, Jesus said,
" God is your Father, treat him as your Father,
commend your future to him, cast all your
care upon him as such." "Take no thought,

246 The Lord's Prayer.

saying, What shall we eat ? or, What shall we
drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have
need of all these things." Pray to him as such,
then. "When thou pray est, pray to thy Fa-
ther which seeth in secret." After this manner
pray ye — " Our Father which art in heaven."
And what Jesus said to the multitude on the
mountain-side, he says to every child of Adam.
Was it not, indeed, upon the existence and
character of that very relationship of God to us
and to all men that Jesus grounded the assu-
rance he would have us cherish that our
prayers shall not, cannot, go up in vain to
heaven ? For it is worthy of remark that on
both occasions when this prayer was recited
within the compass of the same discourse,
shortly after he had repeated it — as if his
thoughts were returning to the subject, and he
wished to fix firm in the hearts of his disciples
a faith in the efficacy of such prayer — he added,
"I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given ;
seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you. For every one that asketh "
— asks as I have told you he should, or for
what I have told you he should — "every one
that asketh, receiveth j and he that seeketh,

The Loed's Peayer. 247

findeth ; and to him that knocketh, it shall be
opened. If a son ask bread of any of you that
is a father, will he give him a stone ? or if he
ask for a fish, will he give him a serpent ? . . . .
If ye, then, being evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more will
your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask him V

XIII.

JESUS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.*

CHRIST'S first visit to Persea, on his way up
to the Feast of Dedication, was one of much
locomotion and manifold activities. His second
was dedicated rather to seclusion and repose. He
retired to one chosen and hallowed spot — the
place where John at first baptized — where he
himself had first entered on his public ministry.
Many resorted to him there, and many believed
on him, but he did not go about as he had
done before. Living in quiet with his disciples,
a message came to him from Bethany. Some
sore malady had seized upon Lazarus. His sisters
early think of that kind friend, who they knew
had cured so many others, and who surely
would not be unwilling to succor them in their
distress, and heal their brother ; but they knew

* John x. 39-42 ; xi. 1-27.

The Besuiirection and the Life. 249

what had driven him lately from Jerusalem,
and are unwilling to break in upon his retire-
ment, or ask him to expose himself once more to
the deadly hatred of his enemies. The disease
runs on its course ; Lazarus is on the very point
of death. They can restrain no longer. They
send off a messenger to Jesus. No urgent en-
treaty, however, is conveyed that he should
hasten to their relief. No course is dictated,
No desire even expressed. They think it is not
needed. They remember all the kindnesses they
had already experienced at his hands — how
often he had made their house his home — what
special marks of personal attachment and regard
he had shown to themselves and to their bro-
ther. They deem it enough, therefore, to bid
their messenger say, as soon as he met Jesus,
" Lord, he whom thou lovest is sick." Jesus
hears the message, and, without giving any
other indication of his purpose, simply says,
" This sickness is not unto death, but for the
glory of God, that the Son of God might be
glorified thereby." This is all the answer that
he makes to a message so simply and delicately
expressed ; by that very simplicity and deli-
cacy making all the stronger appeal to his sym-
pathy. Nothing more being said by Jesus, nor

250 Jesus the Besumieltion

anything further apparently intended to be
done, the messenger of the anxious sisters has
to be satisfied with this. It seems to be so far
satisfactory ; " This sickness is not unto death. "''
Jesus either knows that Lazarus is to recover,
or he is to take some method of averting death
— is to cure him ; may have already clone so
by a word spoken — a volition formed at a dis-
tance. Treasuring up the sentence that he has
heard uttered, and extracting from it such com-
fort as he can, the messenger returns to Beth-
any, and Jesus remains still two clays in the
place where he was. During these two days
the incidents of the message and the answer
fail not to be the subject of frequent converse
among the disciples. They too might under-
stand it to be the reason of their Master's say-
ing and doing nothing further in the matter
that he was aware that the death the sisters
dreaded was not to happen ; or they too might
think that his great power had already been
exerted on behalf of one whom they knew he
loved so much. So might they interpret the
saying, "This sickness is not unto death ;" but
what can they make of those other words by
which these had been followed up ? How could
it be said of this sickness of Lazarus, whether

And the Lite. 251

it left him naturally or was removed by a mys-
terious exercise of their Master's powers of
healing, that it was to be "for the glory of God,
that the Son of God might be glorified thereby ?"
This was saying a great deal more of the illness,
however cured, than, so far as they can see,
could be truly and fitly said of it. No further
explanation, however, is made by Jesus, and
they must wait the issue.

Two clays afterwards Jesus calmly and
resolutely, but somewhat abruptly and unex-
pectedly, says to them, " Let us go in to Juclea
again." Though nothing was said or hinted
about the object of the proposed visit, it would
be very natural that the disciples should con-
nect it with the message that had come from
Bethany. But if it was to cure Lazarus that
Christ was going, why had he not gone sooner ?
If the sickness that had been reported to him was
not unto death, why go at all ? — why expose
himself afresh to the malice of those who were
evidently bent upon his destruction ? " Master,"
they say to him, " the Jews of late sought to
stone thee, and goest thou thither again ?" a
remonstrance dictated by a sincere and lau'.la-
ble solicitude for their Master's safety, yet not
without ingredients of ignorance and mistrust.

252 Jesus the Kesurkection

"Are there not," said Jesus in reply, "twelve
hours in the Jay?" "My time for working, for
the doing the will of my Father which is in
heaven, is it not a set time, its bounds as fixed
as those of the natural day, having, like it, its
twelve hours that no man can take from, and
no man can add to ? The hours of this my
allotted period for finishing my earthly work
must run out their course ; and while they are
running, so long as I am upon the path marked
out for me, walking by the light that conies
from heaven, they cannot be shortened, go
where I may ; so long as I go under my Fa-
ther's guidance, so long as I do what he desires,
my life is safe. True, eleven hours of this my
day may be already gone ; I may have entered
upon the last and twelfth, but till it end a
shield of defence is round me that none can
break through. Fear not for me, then : till
that twelfth hour strike I am as safe in Judea
as here. And for your own comfort, know
that what is true of me is true of every man
who walks in God's own light — the light that
the guiding Spirit gives to every man — kin-
dled within his soul to direct him through all
his earthly work. If any man walk in that
light, he will not, cannot stumble, or fall, or

And the Life. 253

perisli ; but if he walk in the night, go where
he is not called, do what he is not bidden, then
he stumbleth, because there is no light in him.
He has turned the day into night, and the
doom of the night-traveller hangs over him."
He pauses to let these weighty truths sink
deep into the disciples' hearts, then, turning to
them, he says, " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth,
but I go that I may awake him out of sleep."
In their anxiety about their Master they had
forgotten their absent friend whose love to
Jesus had flowed over upon them, to whom
they also were attached. How humanly, how
tenderly does the phrase " our friend Lazarus "
recall him to their thoughts! It would seem
as if the ties that knit our Lord to the mem-
bers of that family at Bethany had been formed
for this as for other reasons, to show how open
the heart of Jesus was, not merely to a uni-
versal love to all mankind, but to the more
peculiar and specific affections of friendship.
Among the twelve there was the one whom he
particularly loved ; among the families he vis-
ited there was one to which he was particularly
attached. Outside the circle of his immediate
followers there was one whom he called his
friend. Had he not already so distinctly said

254 Jesus the Eesuerection

that his sickness was not unto death, the disci-
ples, remembering that he had said of Jairus's
daughter, " she is not dead, but sleepeth,"
might at first have caught the true meaning of
their Master's words ; but the idea of the death
of Lazarus is so far from their thoughts, that
they put the first interpretation on them that
occurs, and without thinking on the worse
than trifling end that they were thus attribut-
ing to Christ as the declared purpose of his
proposed visit, they say, " Lord, if he sleep,
he shall do well." Then said Jesus unto them
plainly, " Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for
your sakes that I was not there, to the intent
ye may believe ; nevertheless let us go unto
him." Glad that he was not there ! Yes, for
it spared him the pain of looking at his friend
in his agony, at his sisters in their grief. Glad ;
for had he been there, could he have resisted
the appeal of such a deathbed over which such
mourners were bending ? Could he, though
meaning afterwards to raise him from the dead,
have stood by and see Lazarus depart? Glad
that he was not there ! Was he insensible,
then, to all the pangs which that departure
must have cost Martha and Mary? — this one
among the rest, that he was not there, and had

And the Life. 255

not come when sent for ? Was he insensible to
the four days' weeping for the dead that his
absence had entailed ? Glad that he was not
there ! Had the mourning sisters heard the
words, they might have fancied that his affec-
tion for their family had suffered a sudden chill.
But there was no lack of sensibility to their
sufferings ; his sympathies with them had suf-
fered no reverse. It was not that he loved or
pitied them the less. It was that his sympa-
thies, instead of resting on the single household
of Bethany, were taking in the wider circle of
his discipleship, and through them, or along
with them, the whole family of our sinful, suf-
fering humanity. It was with a calm, delib-
erate forethought that on hearing of the sick-
ness, he allowed two days to pass without any
movement made to Bethany. He knew when
Lazarus died — knew that he had died two days
before he told his disciples of it, for the death,
followed by speedy burial, must have occurred
soon after the messenger left Bethany, in all
likelihood before he reached the place where
Jesus was ; for if a day's journey carried the
messenger (as it might have done to Bethabara),
and another such day of travel carried Jesus
and his disciples back again to Bethany, as

256 Jesus the Besurrection

Lazarus was four clays iu the grave when Jesus
reached the spot, his decease must have taken
place within a very short time after the original
despatch of the message. Knowing when it
happened, Jesus did not desire to be present
at it — deliberately arranged it so that it should
not be till four days after the interment that he
should appear in Bethany. He had already
in remote Galilee raised two from the dead —
one soon after death, the other before burial.
But now, in the immediate neighborhood
of Jerusalem, in presence of a mixed com-
pany of friends and enemies, he has resolved,
in raising Lazarus, to perform the great clos-
ing, crowning miracle of his ministry ; and
he will do it so that not the most captious
or the most incredulous can question the
reality either of the death or of the resur-
rection. It was to be our Lord's last public
appearance among the Jews previous to his
crucifixion. It was to be the last public mira-
cle he was to be permitted to work. From thp
day that this great deed was done was to date
the formal resolution of the Sanhedrim to put
him to death. This close connection of the
raising of Lazarus with his own decease was
clearly before his eye. His sayings and doings

And the Life. . 257

at Bethabara show with what deep interest he
himself looked forward to the issue. If we
cannot with certainty say that no miracle he
ever wrought occupied beforehand so much of
our Saviour's thoughts, we can say that no
other miracle was predicted and prepared for
as this one was.

" Lazarus is dead .... nevertheless let us
go unto him." Had the disciples but remem-
bered their Master's first words, to which the
key had now been put into their hands, they
might at once have gathered what the object
of that journey was in which Jesus invited them
to accompany him, and the thought of it might
have banished other fancies and other fears.
But slow to realize the glory of the coming and
predicted miracle, or quick to connect it with
the after-risk and danger, they hesitate. One
there is among them as slow in faith as the
slowest — fuller, perhaps, than any of them of
mistrust — yet quick and fervid in his love, see-
ing nothing but death before Jesus if once he
shows himself at Jerusalem — who says unto
his fellow-disciples, "Let us also go that we
may die with him :" the expression of a gloomy
and somewhat obstinate despondency, sinking
into despair, yet at the same time of heroic and

258 Jesus the Besurkection

chivalrous attachment. Jesus says nothing to
the utterer of this speecn. He waits for other
and after occasions to take Thomas into his
hands, and turn his incredulity into warm and
living faith.

The group journeys on to Bethany, and at
last comes near the village. Some one has wit-
nessed its approach and goes with the tidings to
where the mourning sisters and those who have
to comfort them are sitting. It may have been
into Martha's ear that the tidings are first whis-
pered— Mary beside her, too overwhelmed with
grief to hear. As soon as she hears that Jesus
is coming, Martha rises and goes out to meet
him. Mary, whether she hears or not, sees her
sister rise and go, yet stays still in the house —
the two sisters, one in her eager movement, the
other in her quiet rest, here as elsewhere show-
ing forth the difference of their characters.

Martha is soon in the Saviour's presence.
The sight of Jesus fills her heart with strange
and conflicting emotions. In his kind look she
reads the same affectionate regard he had ever
shown. Yet had he not delayed coming to
them in their hour of greatest need ? She will
not reproach, for her confidence is still unbro-
ken. Yet she cannot help feeling what looked
like forgetfulncss or neglect. Above all such

And the Life. 259

personal feelings the thought of her dead
brother rises. She thinks of the strange words
the messenger had reported. She knows not
well what they could have meant, to what
they could have pointed ; but the hope still
lingers in her heart, that now that he at last
is here, the love and power of Jesus may find
some way of manifesting themselves — perhaps
even in recalling Lazarus from the dead. And
in the tumult of these mixed feelings — in the
agitation of regret and confidence, and grief
and hope — she breaks out in the simple but
pathetic utterance, " Lord, if thou hadst been
here, my brother had not died " — ' it is what
Mary and I have been saying to ourselves and
to one another, over and over again, ever
since that sad and sorrowful hour. If only
thou hadst been here ! I do not blame you
for not being here. I do not know what can
have kept you from coming. I will not doubt
or distrust your love — but if thou hadst been
here my brother had not died — you could, you
would have kept him from dying — you could,
you would have raised him up, and given him
back to us in health. Nay, " I know that
even now, whatsoever thou wilt ask of God,
God will give it thee." '

The reply of Jesus seems almost to have

260 Jesus the Eesueeection

been framed for the very purpose of checking
the hope that was obviously rising in Martha's
breast. "Thy brother," he says, " shall rise
again," — words not indeed absolutely preclud-
ing the possibility of a present restoration of
her brother to life, but naturally directing her
thoughts away from such a restoration to the
general resurrection of the dead. Such at
least is their effect upon Martha, as is evident
from her reply, "I know that he shall rise
again in the resurrection at the last day " — a
reply which, though it proved the firmness of
her faith in the future and general resurrection
of the dead, indicated something like disap-
pointment at what Jesus had said.

But our Lord's great object in entering into
this conversation had now been gained. Instead
of fostering the expectation of immediate relief,
he had drawn Martha's thoughts off for a time
from the present, and fixed them upon the dis-
tant future of the invisible and eternal world.
Having created thus the fit opportunity — here
on the eve of performing the greatest of his
miracles — here in converse with one of sincere
but imperfect faith, plunged in grief, and seek-
ing only the recovery of a lost brother, Jesus
says, " I am the resurrection and the life ; he
that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet

And the Life. 261

shall he live ; and whosoever liveth and be-
lieveth on me shall never die" — as if he had
said, ' Martha, Martha, thou wert troubled once
when I was in your dwelling with the petty
cares of your household, but now a heavier
trouble has come upon your heart. You mourn
a brother's death, but would that even now I
could raise your thoughts above the considera-
tion of the life, the death, the resurrection, of
the perishable body, to the infinitely more mo-
mentous one of the life and the death of the
indwelling, the immortal soul ! You are look-
ing to me with a lingering hope that I might
find some way to assuage your present grief by
giving back to you the brother that lies buried.
You believe so far in me as to have the confi-
dence that whatever I ask of God, God would
give it me. Would that I could get you and
all to look to me in another and far higher
character than the assuager of human sorrow,
the bringer of a present relief ; that I could fix
your faith upon me as the Prince of life, the
author, the bestower, the originator, the sup-
porter, the maturer of that eternal life within
the soul over which death hath so little dominion
■ — that whosoever once hath this life begun, in
dj ing still lives, and in living can never die.

262 Jesus the Eesuekection

For let us notice, as helping us to a true com-
prehension of these wonderful words of our Re-
deemer, that immediately after their utterance,
he addressed to Martha the pointed question,
" Belie vest thou this ?" It was not unusual for
our Lord to ask some profession of faith in his
power to help from those on whom or for whom
that power was about to be exerted. He did
not need to ask any such profession from Mar-
tha. She had already declared her full assur-
ance that he had the power of Deity at com-
mand. The very manner in which the question
was put to Martha, "Believest thou this?"
plainly intimates that some weighty truth lay
wrapped tip in the words just uttered beyond
any to which she had already assented. Had
there been nothing in what Christ now said be-
yond what Martha had previously believed — to
which he had already testified — such an interro-
gation would have been, without a meaning. It
cannot be a mere proclamation of the immor-
tality of the soul and the resurrection of the
body, and of Christ's connexion with them, either
as their human announcer or their Divine au-
thor, that is here made. No such interpreta-
tion would explain or justify the language here
employed. The primary and general assertion,

And the Life. 2G3

" I am the resurrection and the life," gets its
only true significance assigned to it by the two
explanatory statements with which it was fol-
lowed up. " I am the life," said Jesus, not in
any general sense as being the great origina-
tor and sustainer of the soul's existence, but in
this peculiar and specific sense, that " whosoever
liveth and believeth on me" — or rather, liveth
by believing on me — "shall never die." And
" I am the resurrection " in this sense, that
" whosoever believeth on me, though he were
dead, yet shall he live."

Such language connects, in some peculiar
way, the life and resurrection that Jesus is now
speaking of with believing on him ; it at least
implies that he has some other and closer con-
nexion with the life and the resurrection of
those who believe than he has with that of
those who believe not. Jesus, in fact, is here,
in these memorable words, only proclaiming to
Martha, and through her to the world of sin-
ners he came to save, what the great end of
his mission is, and how it is that that end is
accomplished. Sin entered into this world, and
death — not the dissolution of the body, but
spiritual death — this death by sin. " In the
day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die." And

264 Jesus the Resurrection

the death came with the first transgression.
The pulse of the true spiritual life, of life in
God and to God, ceased its beatings. Death
reigned in all its coldness ; the warmth of a
pervading love to God had gone, and the chill
of a pervading fear seized upon the soul.
Death reigned in all its silence, for the voice
of ceaseless prayer and praise was hushed. It
reigned in all its torpid inactivity, for no lon-
ger was there a continued putting forth of the
entire energies of the spirit in the service of its
Maker. And the same death that came upon
the first transgressor has passed upon all men,
for that all have sinned. And if to be under
condemnation be death, if to be carnally-minded
be death ; if, amid all the variety of motives
by which we naturally are influenced, there
be, but at lengthened intervals, a weak and
partial regard to that Great Being whom
no creature can altogether banish from its
thoughts, then surely the Scriptures err not in
the representation that it was into a world
of the dead that Jesus came. He came to be
the quickener of the dead ; having life in him-
self, to give of this life to all who came to him
for it. " The life was manifested, and we have
seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you

And the Life. 2G5

that eternal life, which was with the Father,
and was manifested unto us." " In this was
manifested the love of God toward us, because
lhat God sent his only begotten Son into the
world, that we might live through him."
" And we know that the Son of God is come.
This is the true God and eternal life." "And
this is the record, that God hath given unto us
eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that
hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not
the Son of God hath not life. These things
have I written unto you that believe on the
name of the Son of God, that ye may know
that ye have eternal life, and that ye may be-
lieve on the name of the Son of God."

Such are the testimonies borne by a single
apostle in one short epistle (1st Epistle of
John). More striking than any other words
upon this subject are those of our Lord himself.
Take up the Gospel of St. John, the special
record of those discourses of our Lord in which
he most fully unfolded himself, telling who he
was, and what he came to this earth to do, and
you will not find one of them in which the cen-
tral idea of life coming to the dead through
him is not presented. Thus, in his conversa-
tion with N.icodemus on the occasion of his

266 Jesus the Eesuiieection

first Passover, you hear him say : "As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
must the Son of man be lifted up : that whoso-
ever believeth in him might not perish, but
have eternal life. For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son, that who-
soever believeth in him might not perish, but
have everlasting life."* Thus, also, in his con-
versation with the woman of Samaria : "If
thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is
that saith to thee, Give me to drink ; thou
wouldest have asked of him, and he would
have given thee living" (life-giving) "water.
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst
again : but whosoever drinketh of the water
that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but
the water that I shall give him shall be in him
a well of water springing up into everlasting
life."f Thus, also, in his next discourse at
Jerusalem, on the occasion of his second Pass-
over : " For as the Father raiseth up the dead,
and quickeneth them ; even so the Son quick -
eneth whom he will. Yerily, verily, I say un-
to you, He that heareth my word, and believ-
eth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life,

* John iii. 14-16. t John iv. 10-14

And the Life. 267

and shall not come into condemnation ; but is
passed from death unto life. Ye will not
come unto ine that ye might have life.'"'*
Thus, also, in the great discourse delivered
after the feeding of the five thousand : "This
is the Father's will which hath sent me, that
every one which seeth the Son, and believeth
on him, may have everlasting life : and I will
raise him up at the last day. I am that bread
of life. This is the bread which cometh down
from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and
not die. If any man eat of this bread, he
shall live forever : and the bread that I shall
give is my flesh, which I will give for the life
of the world. Verily, verify, I say unto you,
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and
drink his blood, ye have no life in you. He
that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood,
dwelleth in me, and I in him."f Thus, also,
at the Feast of Tabernacles : "I am the light
of the world : he that followeth me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of
life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man
keep my saying, he shall never see death. "J
Thus, also, at the Feast of Dedication : " My

* John v. 21, 24, 40. f John vi. 39, 40, 48, 50, 51, 53, 56.

J John viii. 12, 51.

268 Jesus the Besueeection

sheep hear my voice, and they follow me, and
I give unto them eternal life ; and they shall
never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand."* And so also on the eve of
his last and greatest miracle : "I am the resur-
rection and the life : he that belie veth in me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live, and
whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die." Is there nothing striking in it
that, from first to last, running through all
these discourses of our Saviour — to be found in
every one of them, without a single exception
— this should be held out to us by our Lord
himself as the great end and object of his life
and death, — that we, who were all dead in
trespasses and sins, alienated from the life of
God, should find for these dead souls of ours a
higher and everlasting life in him ?

The life of the soul lies, first, in the enjoy-
ment of God's favor — in the light of his recon-
ciled countenance shining upon it, in the ever-
lasting arms of his love and power embracing
it. The great obstacle to our entrance upon
this life is conscious guilt — the sense of having
forfeited the favor — incurred the wrath of God.
This obstacle Christ has taken out of the way

* John x. 27, 28.

And the Life. 2G9

by dying for us, by bearing our sins in his own
body on the tree. There is redemption for us
through his blood, even the forgiveness of our
sins. Not that the Cross is a talisman which
works with a hidden, mystic, unknown, unfelt
power — not that the blood of the great sacri-
fice is one that cleanseth past guilt away, leaving
the old corruption untouched and unsubdued.
Jesus is the life in a further and far higher
sense than the opener of a free way of access
to God through the rent veil of his flesh. He
is the perennial source of that new life within,
which consists in communion with God — like-
ness to God — in gratitude, in love, in peace,
and joy, and hope — in trusting, serving, sub-
mitting, enduring. This life hangs ever and
wholly upon him ; all good and gracious affec-
tions, every pure and holy impulse, the desire
and the ability to be, to do, to suffer — coming
to us from him to whose light we bring our
darkness, to whose strength we bring our weak-
ness, to whose sympathy our sorrow, to whose
fullness our emptiness. Our natural life, derived
originally from another, is for a season depend-
ent on its source, but that dependence weak-
ens and at last expires. The infant hangs help-
lessly upon its mother at the first. But the

270 Jesus the Resurrection

infant grows into the child, the child into the
man — the two lives separate. Not such our
spiritual life. Coming to us at first from Christ,
it comes equally and entirely from him ever
afterwards. It grows, but never away from
him. It gets firmer, more matured ; but its
greater firmness and maturity it owes to closer
contact with him — simpler and more entire
dependence on him, deeper and holier love to
him. It is as the branch is in the vine, having
no life when parted from it ; not as a child is
in its parent, that believers are in Christ.
There is 'but one relationship, of Son to Father
— one wholly unique — which fitly represents
this union, which was employed by Christ him-
self to do so. " That they all may be one, as
thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us. I in them and thou in
me, that they may be made perfect in one."
It is indeed but the infancy of that life which
lies in such oneness with the Son and the
Father that is to be witnessed here on earth.
Yet within that feeble infancy are the germi-
nating seeds of an endless, an ever-progressive,
an indestructible existence, raised by its very
nature above the dominion of death ; bound
by ties indissoluble to him who was dead and is

And the Life. 271

alive again, and liveth for evermore ; an exist-
ence destined to run on its everlasting course,
getting ever nearer and nearer, growing ever
liker and liker to him from whom it flows.

Amid the death-like torpor which hath fallen
upon us, stripping us of the desire aud power
to live wholly in God and wholly for God, who
would not wish to feel the quickening touch of
the great Life-Giver, Jesus Christ — to be raised
to newness of life in him — to have our life
bound up with his forever — hid with him in
God ? This — nothing less than this, nothing
lower than this — is set before us. Who would
not wish to see and feel it realized in his present,
his future, his eternal existence ? Then, let us
cleave to Christ, resolved in him to live, desir-
ing in him to die, that with him we may be
raised at last, at the resurrection, on the great
day, to those heavenly places where, free from
all weakness, vicissitude, corruption, and decay,
this life shall be expanded and matured through-
out the bright ages of an unshadowed eternity.

XIV.

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS.*

IT is not likely that Martha understood in its
full meaning what Christ had said about
his being the resurrection and the life. So far
however, as she did comprehend she believed ;
and so when Jesus said to her, " Believest thou
this?" — understanding that he had spoken
about himself, and wished from her some ex-
pression of her faith — she said to him, "Yea
I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of
God, which should come into the world."
With crude ideas of the character and offices
they attributed to him, many were ready to
call Jesus the Christ, to believe that he was the
Messias spoken of by the prophets. Martha's
confession went much further than this ; she
believed him to be also the Son of God, to be
that for claiming to be which the Jews had been

* John xi. 22-54.

The Kaising of Lazarus. 273

ready to stone him, as one making himself
equal with God. It may have been, regarding
him too much as a mere man having power
with God, that she had previously said, "But
I know that even now whatsoever thou wilt
ask of God, God will give it thee ;" but now
that her thoughts are concentrated upon it, she
tells out all the faith that is in her, and in so
doing ranks herself beside Peter and the very
few who at that time could have joined in the
confession, "I believe that thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God."

Had Mary and Lazarus not been in his
thoughts Jesus might have pronounced over
Martha the same benediction that he did over
Peter, and said to her, " Blessed art thou, Mar-
tha, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it
unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."
As it is, he simply accepts the good confession,
and bids Martha go and call her sister.

Mary had not heard at first of the Lord's
coming, or, if she had, was too absorbed in her
sorrow to heed it. But now when Martha
whispers in her ear, " The Master is come, and
calleth for thee," she rises and hastens out to
where Jesus is outside the village. No one had
followed Martha when she went out there.

274 The Eaising of Lazakus.

But there was such an unusual quickness, such
a fresh and easrer excitement in this movement
of Mary, that those around her ran with her
and followed, saying, " She goeth to the grave
to weep there." Thus did she draw along with
her the large company that was to witness the
great miracle.

Once again in the Master's presence, Mary is
overwhelmed with emotion. She falls weeping
at his feet ; has nothing to say as she looks up
at him through her tears but what Martha had
said before : " Lord, if thou hadst been here,
my brother had not died." Her grief checks
all further utterance. Nor has Jesus anything
to say. Mary is weeping at his feet, Martha is
weeping at his side, the Jews are weeping all
around. This is what death hath done, desolat-
ing a once happy home, rending with bitter
grief the two sisters' hearts, melting into kin-
dred sorrow the hearts of friends and neighbors.
The calm that had its natural home in the breast
of the Redeemer is broken up : he grieves in
spirit and is troubled. Too heavy in heart him-
self, too troubled in spirit, as he stands with
hearts breaking and tears falling all around him
to have any words of counsel or comfort for
Mary such as he addressed to Martha, he can

The Kaising of Lazaiius. 275

only say, "Where have ye laid him? They
say to him, Lord, come and see." He can re-
strain no longer. He bursts into tears.

What shall we think or say of these tears of
Jesus ? There were some among those who
saw him shed them, who, looking at them in
their first and simplest aspect — as tears shed
over the grave of a departed friend — said one
to another, " Behold how he loved him !"
There were others not sharing so much in the
sister's grief, who were at leisure to say,
" Could not this man which opened the eyes of
the blind have caused that even this man
should not have died?" "If he could have
saved him, why did he not do it? He may
weep now himself ; had it not been better
that he had saved these two poor sisters from
weeping?" We take our station beside these
men. With the first we say, Behold how he
pities ! See in the tears he sheds what a sin-
gular sympathy with human sorrow there is
within his heart — a sympathy deeper and
purer than we have ever elsewhere seen ex-
pressed. To weep with others or for others is
no unusual thing, and carries with it no evi-
dence of extraordinary tenderness of spirit.
It is what at some time or other of their lives

276 The Kaising of Lazarus.

all men have done. But there is a peculiarity
in the tears of Jesus that separates them from
all others — that gives them a new meaning
and a new power. For where is Jesus when
he weeps ? a few paces from the tomb of
Lazarus ; and what is he about immediately to
do? to raise the dead man from the grave, and
give him back to his sisters. Only imagine
that, gifted with such a power, you had gone
on such an errand, and stood on the very edge
of its execution, would not your whole soul be
occupied with the great thing you were about
to do, the great joy you were about to cause ?
You might see the sisters of the dead one
weeping, but, knowing how very soon you
were about to turn their grief into gladness, the
sight would only hasten you forward on your
way. But though knowing what a perfect
balm he was so soon to lay upon all the sorrow,
Jesus shows himself so sensitive to the simple
touch of grief, that even in such peculiar cir-
cumstances he cannot see others weeping with-
out weeping along with them. How exquisitely
tender the sympathy manifested in the tears
that in such peculiar circumstances were shed !
Again we take our station beside the on-
lookers, and to the second set of speakers we

The Eaising of Lazabus. 277

would say — he could have caused that this
man had not died. But his are no false tears,
though shed over a calamity he could have
prevented. He allowed Lazarus to die, he
allowed his sisters to suffer all this woe, not that
he loved them less, but because he knew that
for him, for them, for others, for us all, higher
ends were in this way gained than could have
been accomplished by his cutting the illness
short, and going from Bethabara to cure. Lit-
tle did the weeping sisters know what a place
in the annals of redemption the death and
resurrection of their brother was to occupy.
How earnestly in the course of the illness did
they pray for his recovery ! How eagerly did
they dispatch their messenger to Jesus ! A
single beam of light fell on the darkness when
the messenger brought back as answer the
words he had heard Jesus utter — " This sick-
ness is not unto death, but for the glory of
God, that the Son of God might be glorified
thereby." What other meaning could they
put upon the words, but that either their
brother was to recover, or Jesus was to inter-
fere and heal him ? Their brother died, and
all the more bitterly because of their disap-
pointment did they bemoan his loss. But what

278 The Eaising of Lazaeus.

thought they when they got him back again— «
what thought they when they heard of Christ's
own death and resurrection — what thought
they when they came to know, as they had
never done before, that Jesus was indeed the
abolisher of death, the bringer of life and im-
mortality to light? Would they then have
wished that their brother had not died — that
they had been saved their tears, but lost the
hallowed resurrection-birth of their brother to
his Lord, lost to memory the chieftest treasure
that time gave to carry with them into eter-
nity ?

Groaning again in spirit, Jesus came to the
grave. It was a cave, and a stone covered the
niche within which the body of the dead was
lying. Jesus said, " Take ye away the stone.'''
The doing so would at once expose the dead,
and let loose the foul effluvium of the advanced
decomposition. The careful Martha, whose
active spirit ever busied itself with the out-
ward and tangible side of things, at once per-
ceives this, and hastens to interpose a check.
Gently, but chidingly, the Lord said unto
her, '■ Said I not unto thee, that, if thou
wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory
of God ?" ' Was it not told thee in the words

The Eaising of Lazaeus. 279

brought back by the messenger that this sick-
ness was to be for the glory of God — a glory
waiting yet to be revealed ? Have I not been
trying to awaken thy faith in myself, as the
resurrection and the life ? Why think, then,
of the existing state of thy brother's body ?
Why not let faith anticipate the future, and
put all such lower thoughts and cares away ?'
The rebuke was gently given ; but given at
such a time, and in such presence, it must
have fallen heavily upon poor Martha's heart.
And now the order is obeyed. Taking a
hasty glance within, the removers of the stone
withdraw. Jesus stands before the open sepul-
chre. But all is not ready yet. There is to be
a slowness, a solemnity in every step that shall
wind up every spirit to the topmost point of
expectation. Jesus lifts his eyes to heaven and
prays, not to ask God to work the miracle, or
give him power to do so. So might Moses, or
Elijah, or any other of the great miracle-workers
of earlier times have done, proclaiming thereby
in whose name it was and by whose power they
wrought. Jesus never did so. He stands alone
in tins respect. All that he did was done indeed
in conjunction with the Father. He was careful
to declare that the Son did nothing of himself,

280 The Eaising of Lazaeus.

nothing independently. It was in faith, with
prayer, that all his mighty works were wrought t
but the faith was as peculiar as the prayer — ■
both such as he alone could cherish and pre-
sent. Ordinarily the faith was hidden in his
heart, the prayer was in secret, muttered and
unheard. But now he would have it known
how close was the union between him and the
Father. He would turn the approaching mir-
acle into an open and incontrovertible evidence
that he was the sent of the Father, the Son of
God. And so, in words of thanksgiving rather
than of petition, he says, " Father I thank thee
that thou hast heard me " — the silent prayer
had already been heard and answered — "And
I know that thou nearest me always," — that
thy hearing is not peculiar to this case, for as
I am always praying, so thou art always an-
swering— " but because of the people that stand
by I said it, that they may believe that thou
hast sent me." In no more solemn manner
could the fact of his mission from the Father,
and of the full consent and continued co-opera-
tion of the Father with him in all he said and
did, be suspended upon the issue of the words
that next come from his lips : "And when he
had thus spoken, he cried with a loud voice.

The Raising of Lazarus. 281

Lazarus, come forth/' The hour has come for
the dead to hear and live. At once, and at
that summons, the body lives, starts into life
again, not as it had died, the life injected into
a worn and haggard frame. It gets back in a
moment all its healthful vigor. At once, too,
and at that summons, from a dreamless sleep
that left it nothing to tell about the four clays'
interval, or from a region the secrets of which
it was not permitted to disclose, the spirit re-
turns to its former habitation. Lazarus rises
and stands erect. But he is bound hand and
foot, a napkin is over his face and across his
eyes. So bound, as good as blind, he could
take but a few timid shuffling steps in advance.
" Loose him," said Jesus, " and let him go."
Thev do it. He can see now all around. He
can go where he pleases. Shall we doubt that
the first use he makes of sight and liberty is to
go and cast himself at the Redeemer's feet.

" Take ye away the stone," " Loose him, and
let him go," Christ could easily by the word
of his great power have removed the stone,
untied the bandages. But he does not do so.
There is to be no idle expenditure of the Di-
vine energy. What human hands are fit for,
human hands must do. The earthly and the

282 The Baising of Lazakus.

heavenly, as in all Christ's workings, blend
harmoniously together. So is it still in that
spiritual world, in which he still is working the
wonders of his grace, raising dead souls to life,
and nourishing the life that is so begotten.

It is not for us to quicken the spiritually
dead. No human voice has power to pierce
the closed ear, to reach the dull, cold heart.
The voice of Jesus can alone do that. But
there are stones of obstruction which keep
that voice from being heard. These we can
remove. The ignorant can be taught, the
name of Jesus be made known, the glad tid-
ings of salvation published abroad. And when
at the divine call the new life has entered into
the soul, by how many bonds and ligaments,
prejudices of the understanding, old holds of
the affections, old habits of the life, is it ham-
pered and hindered ! These, as cramping our
own or others' higher life, we may help to un-
tie and fling away.

But the crowning lesson of the great miracle
is the mingled exhibition that it makes of the
humanity and divinity of our Lord. Nowhere,
at no time in all his life, did he appear more
perfectly human, show himself more openly or
fully to be one with us, our true and tender

The Raising of Lazaeus. 283

elder brother, than when he bursts into tears
before the grave of Lazarus. Nowhere, at no
time, did he appear more divine than when
with the loud voice he cried, " Lazarus, come
forth," and at the voice the dead arose and
came forth. And it is just because there meet
in him the richness and the tenderness of an
altogether human pity and the fullness of a di-
vine power, that he so exactly and so com-
pletely satisfies the deepest inward cravings of
the human heart. In our sins, in our sorrows,
in our weaknesses, in our doubts, in our fears,
we need sympathy of others who have passed
through the same experience. We crave it.
When we get it, we bless the giver, for in truth
it does more than all things else. But there
are many barriers in the way of our obtaining
it, and there are many limits which confine it
when it is obtained. Many do not know us,
They are so differently constituted, that what
troubles us does not trouble them. They look
upon all our inward struggles and vexations as
needless and self-imposed, so that just in pro-
portion to the speciality of our trial is the nar-
rowness of the circle from which we can look
for any true sympathy. But even were we to
find the one in all the earth by nature most

284: The Raising of Lazarus.

qualified to enter into our feelings, how many
are the chances that we should find his sym-
pathy preoccupied, to the full engaged, with-
out time or without patience to make himself
so master of all the circumstances of our lot,
and all the windings of our thoughts and our
affections, as to enable him to feel with us and
for us, as he even might have done ! But that
which we may search the world for without
finding is ours in Jesus Christ. All imped-
iments removed, all limitations lifted off — how
true, how tender, how constant, how abiding
is his brotherly sympathy — the sympathy of
one who knows our frame, who remembers we
are dust, of one who knows all about all within
us, and who is touched with a fellow-feeling of
our infirmities, "having himself been tempted
in all things like as we are." It is not simply
the pity of God ; with all its fullness and ten-
derness, that had not come so close to us,
taken such a hold of us ; it is the sympathy of
a brother-man that Jesus extends to us, free
from all the restrictions to which such sym-
pathy is ordinarily subjected.

But we need more than that sympathy ; we
need succor. Besides the heart tender enough
to pity, we need the hand strong enough to

The Eaiseng of Lazarus. 285

help, to save us. We not only want one to be
with us and feel with us in our hours of simple
sorrow, we want one to be with us and aid
us in our hours of temptation and conflict,
weakness and defeat — one not only to be ever
at our side at all times and seasons of this our
earthly pilgrimage, but to be near us then, to
uphold us then, when flesh and heart shall faint
and fail, to be the strength of our hearts then,
and afterwards our portion forever. In all the
universe there is but one such. Therefore to
him, our own loving, compassionate, Almighty
Saviour, let us cling, that softly in the bosom
of his gentle pity we may repose, and safely, by
his everlasting arms, may forever be sus-
tained.

Let us now resume the narrative. The rais-vf-
of Lazarus was too conspicuous a miracle, it
had been wrought too near the city, had been
seen by too many witnesses, and had produced
too palpable results, not to attract the imme-
diate and fixed attention of the Jewish rulers.
Within a few hours after its performance Jeru-
salem would be filled with the report of its per-
formance. A meeting of the Sanhedrim was
immediately summoned, and sat in council as to
what should be done. No doubt was raised as

286 The Raising of Lazakus.

to the reality of this or any other miracles
which Christ had wrought. They had been
done too openly to admit of that. But now,
when many even of the Jews of Jerusalem
were believing in him, some stringent measures
required to be taken to check this rising, swell-
ing tide, or who could tell to what it may carry
them? There were divisions, however, in the
council. It was constituted of Pharisees and of
Sadducees, who had been looking at Jesus all
through with very iiiferent eyes. The Phari-
sees, from the first, had hated him. He had
made so little of all their boasted righteousness,
had exalted goodness and holiness of heart and
life so far above all ritualistic regularity, had
simplified religion so, and encouraged men,
however sinful, to go directly to God as their
merciful Father, setting aside the pretensions of
the priesthood, and treating as things of little
worth the labored theology and learning of the
schools, — he had been so unsparing besides in
exposing the avarice, the ambition, the sensu-
ality that cloaked themselves in the garb of a
precise and exclusive and fastidious religionism,
that they early felt that their quarrel with him
was not to be settled otherwise than by his death.
Very early, on the occasion of his second visit

The Eaising of Lazarus. 287

to Jerusalem, they had sought to slay him, at
first nominally as a Sabbath-breaker, then after-
wards, and still more, as a blasphemer.* Iu
Galilee — to which he had retired to put himself
out of the reach of the Pharisees of the capital
■ — their hostility pursued him, till we read of
the Pharisees and the Herodians then taking
counsel together " how they might destroy
him."f Once and again, at the Feast of Taber-
nacles and at the Feast of the Dedication, stones
had been taken up to stone him to death,
officers had been sent to arrest him, and the
resolution come to and announced, that if any
man should confess that he was the Christ, he
should be excommunicated. But as yet no for-
mal determination of the Sanhedrim had been
made that he should • be put to death. The
reason of this delay, for suffering Christ to go
at large even for so long a time as he did, was
in all likelihood the dominance in the Sanhe-
drim of the Sadducean element. The Saddu-
cees had their own grounds for disliking the
person, the character, the pretensions of Jesus,
but they were not so vehement or so virulent
in their persecution of him. Caring less about

* John v. 16, 18. t Mark iii. 6.

.288 The Raising of Lazabus.

religious dogmas and observances than the
rival sect, they might have been readier to
tolerate him as an excited enthusiast ; but
now they also got frightened, for they were the
great supporters of the Roman power, and the
great fearers of popular revolt. And so, when
this meeting of the Great Council was called in
haste, Pharisees and Sadducees found common
ground in saying to one another, " What do
we ? for this man doeth many miracles. If
we let him thus alone, all men will believe on
him ; and the Romans shall come and take
away both our place and nation.'' Neither
party believed that there was any chance of
Jesus making a successful revolt, and achieving
by that success a liberation from the Roman
yoke, as it then lay upon them. The Pharisees,
the secret enemies of the foreigner, saw nothing
in Jesus of such a warlike leader as the nation
longed for and required. The Sadducees,
dreading some outbreak, but utterly faithless
as to any good issue coming out of it, saw no-
thin £ before them as the result of such a move-
ment but the loss of such power as they were
still permitted to exercise. And so both com-
bined against the Lord. But there was some
loose talking, some doubts were expressed by

The Raising of Lazarus. 289

men like Nicodemus, or some feebler measures
spoken of, till the high priest himself arose, —
Caiaphas, the son-in law of Annas, connected
thus with that family in which the Jewish pon-
tificate remained for fifty years — four of the
sons, as well as the son-in-law of Annas, having,
with some interruptions, enjoyed this dignity.
All through this period, embracing the whole of
Christ's life from early childhood, Annas, the
head of this favored family, even when himself
out of office, retained much of its power, being
consulted on all occasions of importance, and
acting as the president of the Sanhedrim.
Hence it is that in the closing scenes of our
Lord's history Annas and Caiaphas appear as
acting conjunctly, each spoken of as High
Priest. Caiphas, like the rest of his family,
like all the aristocracy of the Temple, was a
Sadducee ; and the spirit both of the family
and the sect was that of haughty pride and a
bold and reckless cruelty. Caiaphas cut the
deliberations short by saying impetuously and
authoritatively to his colleagues, " Ye know
nothing at all. nor consider that it is expedient
for us, that one man should die for the people,
and that the whole nation perish not." One
life, the life of this Galilean, what is it worth ?

290 The Kaising of Lazarus.

"What matters it whether he be innocent or
guilty, according to this or that man's estimate
of guilt or innocence ; It stands in the way of
the national welfare. Better one man perish
than that a whole nation be involved in danger,
it may be in ruin. The false, the hollow, the
unjust plea, upon which the life of many a
good and innocent man, guilty of nothing but
speaking the plain and honest truth, has been
sacrificed, had all the sound, as coming from
the lips of the High Priest, of a wise policy,, a
consultation for the nation's good. Pleased
with themselves as such good patriots, and cov-
ering with this disguise all the other grounds
and reasons for the resolution, it was deter-
mined that Jesus should be put to death. It
remained only to see how most speedily and
most safely it could be accomplished.

Unwittingly, in what he said Caiaphas had
uttered a prophecy, had announced a great
and central truth of the Christian faith. He
had given to the death determined on too lim-
ited a range, as if it had been for that nation
of the Jews alone that Jesus was to die. But
the Evangelist takes up, expounds, and ex-
pands his words as carrying with them the
broad significance that not for that nation only

The Baising of Lazaeus. 291

was he to die, but that by his death he " should
gather together in one the children of God that
were scattered abroad." Strange ordering of
Providence, that here at the beginning and
there at the close of our Lord's passion — here
in the Sanhedrim, there upon the cross — here
from the Jewish High Priest, there from the
Roman governor — words should come by which
the unconscious utterers conspired in proclaim-
ing the priestly and kingly authority and office
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ !

XY.

THE LAST JOURNEY THROUGH PERJEA : THE TEN

LEPERS THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM

THE QUESTION OP DIVORCE LITTLE CHILDREN

BROUGHT TO HIM — THE YOUNG RULER.

*

CHRIST'S stay at Bethany on the occasion
of his raising Lazarus from the dead must
have been a very short one. The impression
and effect of the great miracle was so immedi-
ate and so great that no time was lost by the
rulers in calling together the council and com-
ing to their decision to put Jesus to death.
Hearing of this, no time on his part would be
lost in putting himself, now only for a short
time, beyond their reach. He retired in the
first instance to a part of the country near the
northern extremity of the wilderness of Judea,
into a city called Ephraim, identified by many
with the modern town of Taiyibeh, which lies

* Luke rvii. 11-37, xviii. 15-27 ; Matt. xix. 1-26 ; Mark x. 1-27.

The Last Joueney Thkough Pei^ea. 293

a few miles northeast of Bethel. After some
days of rest in this secluded spot, spent we
know not how, the Passover drew on, and Je-
sus arose to go up to it. He took a circuitous
course, passing eastward along the border-line
between Galilee and Samaria, which lay not
more than half a day's journey from Ephraim,
descending into the valley of the Jordan, cross-
ing the river, entering once more into Peraaa,
travelling through it southward to Jericho. It
was during this, the last of all his earthly jour-
neys, that as he entered into a certain village
there met him ten men that were lepers, who
stood afar off, as the law required ; but not
wishing to let him pass without a trial made
of his grace and power, lifted up their voices
and said, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us."
" Go show yourselves unto the priests," was all
that Jesus said. He gave this order, and
passed on. The first thing that the leper who
knew or believed that the leprosy had departed
from him had to do, was to submit himself for
inspection to the priesthood, that his cure
might be authenticated, and he be formally
relieved from the restraints under which he
had been laid. And this is what these ten men
are bidden now to do, whilst as yet no sign of

294 The Last Journey Through Perea.

the removal of the disease appears. Whether
they all had a firm faith from th^ first that they
would be cured we may well doubt. Perhaps
there was but one among them who had such
faith. They all, however, obey the order that
had been given ; it was at least worth trying
whether anything could come out of it, and as
they went they were all cleansed. The mo-
ment that the cure was visible, one of them,
who was a Samaritan, ere he went forward to
the priest, went back to Jesus, glorifying God
with a loud voice, and falling at Christ's feet
to give him thanks. The other nine went on,
had their healing in due course authenticated,
returned to their families and friends, but in-
quired not for their deliverer, nor sought him
out to thank him. The contrast was one that
Christ himself thought fit to notice. "Were
there not ten cleansed," he said, " but where
are the nine ? There are not found that returned
to give glory to God, save this stranger. And
he said unto him, Arise, go thy way, thy faith
hath made thee whole." But now once more
the Pharisees betake themselves to their con-
genial work, asking him when the kingdom of
God should come. He corrects their errors,
gives them solemn warnings as to a coming of

The Ten Lepeks. 295

the Son of Man, in whose issues the men of
that generation should be very disastrously in-
volved, adding the two parables of the Unjust
Judge and of the Pharisee and the Publican.
Once more, however, these inveterate enemies
return to the assault. At an earlier period
they had sought in his own conduct, or in that
of his disciples, to find ground of accusation.
Baffled in this, they try now a more insidious
method, to which we find them having frequent
recourse towards the close of our Lord's min-
istry. They demand his opinion upon the
vexed question of divorce. The two great
schools of their Rabbis differed in their inter-
pretation of the law of Moses upon this point.
Which side would Jesus take ? Decide as he
may, it would embroil him in the quarrel. To
their surprise he shifted the ground of the whole
question from the only one upon which they
rested it, the authority of Moses 5 told them in
effect that they were wrong in thinking that
because Moses, or God through Moses, tolerated
certain practices, that therefore these practices
were absolutely right and universally and
throughout all time to be observed — furnishing
thereby a key to the Divine legislation for the
Israelites, which we have been somewhat slow

296 The Last Journey Through Perjsa.

to use as widely as we should ; told them that
it was because of the hardness of their hearts,
to prevent greater mischiefs than would have
followed a purer and stricter enactment, that
the Israelites had been permitted to put away
their wives (divorce allowed thus, as polygamy
had been), but that from the beginning it had
riot been so, nor should it be so under the new
economy that he was ushering in, in which,
save in a single case, the marriage tie was to
be indissoluble.

In happy contrast with all such insidious at-
tempts to entangle him in his talk was the
next incident of the last journey through Persea.
They brought little children — infants — to him.
It is not said precisely who brought them, but
can we doubt that it was the mothers of the
children ? They brought their little ones to
Jesus that he might touch them, put his hands
upon them, pray for and bless them. Some
tinge of superstition there may have been in
this, some idea of a mystic benefit to be con-
veyed even to infancy by the touch and the
blessing of Jesus. But who will not be ready
to forgive the mothers here, though this were
true, as we think of the fond regard and deep
reverence they cherished towards him ? They

Little Children brought to Him. 297

see him passing through their borders. They
hear it is a farewell visit he is paying. These
little babes of theirs shall never live to see and
know how good, how kind, how holy a one he
is ; but it would be something to tell them of
when they grew up, something that they might
be the better of all their lives afterwards, if he
would but touch them and pray over them.
And so they come, carrying their infants in their
arms, first telling the disciples what they want.
To them it seems a needless if not impertinent
intrusion upon their Master's graver labors.
What good can children so young as these get
from the Great Teacher? Why foist them
upon the notice and care of one who has so
much weightier things in hand ? Without con-
sulting their Master, they rebuke the bringers
of the children, and would have turned them
at once away. Jesus saw it, and he was
" much displeased." There was more than
rudeness and discourtesy in the conduct of his
disciples. There was ignorance, there was un-
belief ; it was a dealing with infants as if they
had no part or share as such in his kingdom
The occasion was a happy one — perhaps the
only one that occurred — for exposing their
ignorance, rebuking their unbelief, and so,

298 The Last Journey Through Per^a.

after looking with displeasure at his disciples,
Jesus said to them, "Suffer the little children
to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of
such is the kingdom of heaven." We take the
last words here in the simplest and most ob-
vious sense, as implying that the kingdom of
heaven belongs to infants, is in a measure made
up of them. It is quite true that immediately
after having said this about the infants Jesus
had a cognate word to say to the adults around
him. He had to tell them that "whosoever
should not receive the kingdom of God as a lit-
tle child should not enter therein.'*' But that
was not said barely and alone as an explana-
tion of his former speech — was not said to take
all meaning out of that speech as having any
reference to the little children that were then
actually in his presence. It might be very
true, and a very needful thing for us to know
that we must be in some sense like to them
before we can enter into the kingdom ; but
that did not imply that they must become like
to us ere they can enter it. If all that Jesus
meant had been that of suchlike, i. e., of those
who, in some particular, resemble little chil-
dren, is the kingdom of heaven, we can see
much less appropriateness in the rebuke of the

Little Children brought to Him. 209

disciples, and in the action of the Lord which
followed immediately upon his use of the ex-
pression,— his taking the little children up
into his arms and blessing them. We ac-
cept, then, the expression as implying not
simply that of suchlike, but of them is the
kingdom of heaven. It may be thought that a
shade of uncertainty still hangs over it. John
Newton uses the cautious language, " I think
it at least highly probable that in those words
our Lord does not only, if at all, here intimate
the necessity of our becoming as little children
in simplicity, as a qualification without which
(as he expressly declares in other places) we
cannot enter into his kingdom, but informs us
of a fact, that the number of infants who are
effectually redeemed to God by his blcod, so
greatly exceeds the aggregate of adult believers,
that his kingdom may be said to consist of lit-
tle children." It is not necessary, however,
while . adopting generally the interpretation
which Newton thought so highly probable, to
press it so far, or to infer that the kingdom is
said to be of such because they constitute the
majority of its members ; enough to receive
the saying as carrying with it the consoling
truth, that to infants as such the kingdom of

300 The Last Joueney Thecugh Pee.ea.

heaven belongeth, so that if in infancy they die,
into that kingdom they enter. We would be
most unwilling to regard this gracious utterance
of our Lord, and the gracious act by which it
was followed up, as implying something else,
or anything less than this.

It is not, however, upon any single saying of
our Lord that we ground our belief that all
who die in infancy are saved ; it is upon the
whole genius, spirit, and object of the great
redemption. There is indeed a mystery in the
death of infants. No sadder nor more mys-
terious sight upon this earth than to see a little
innocent unconscious babe struggling through
the agonies of dissolution, bending upon us
those strange imploring looks which we long to
interpret but cannot, which tell only of a suffer-
ing we cannot assuage, convey to us petitions for
help to which we can give no reply. But great
as the mystery is which wraps itself around the
death, still greater would be that attending the
resurrection of infants if any of them perish.
The resurrection is to bring to all an accession
of weal or woe. In that resurrection infants are
to share. Can we believe that, without an
opportunity given of personally receiving or
rejecting Christ, they shall be subjected to a

Little Children brought to Him. 301

greater woe than would have been theirs had
there been no Redeemer and no redemption ?
Then to them his coming into the world had
been an unmitigated evil. Who can believe it
to be so ? Who will not rather believe, that
even as without sharing in the personal trans-
gression of the first natural head of our race,
without sinning after the similitude of Adam's
transgression, they became involved in death ;
even so, though not believing here — the
chance not given them, — they will share in the
benefit of that life which the second, the spirit-
ual Head of our race, has brought in and dis-
penses? "Your little ones", said the Lord to
ancient Israel, speaking of the entrance into
the earthly land of promise, — " Your little ones
which ye said should be a prey, and your chil-
dren which in that day had no knowledge be-
tween good and evil, they shall go in thither."
And of that better land into which for us Jesus
as the forerunner has entered, shall we not be-
lieve that our little ones, who died before they
had any knowledge between good and evil,
they shall go in thither, go to swell the num-
ber of the redeemed, go to raise it to a vast
majority of the entire race, mitigating more
than we can well reckon the great mystery of

302 The Last Joubne? Through Persia.

the existence here of so much sin, and suffer-
ing, and death.

Setting forth afresh, and now in all likeli-
hood about to pass out of that region, there met
him one who came running in all eagerness, as
anxious not to lose the opportunity, and who
kneeled to him with great reverence as having
the most profound respect for him as a right-
eous man, and who said," Good Master, what
good thing shall I do, that I may inherit eter-
nal life ?" Jesus might at once and without
any preliminary conversation have laid on him
the injunction that he did at the last, and this
might equally have served the final end that
the Lord had in view, but then we should have
been left in ignorance as to what kind of man
he was, and how it was that the injunction was
at once so needful and so appropriate. It is by
help of the preparatory treatment that we are
enabled to see further than we should other-
wise have done into the character of this peti-
tioner. He was young, he was wealthy, he
was a ruler of the Jews. Better than this, he
was amiable, he was virtuous, had made it from
the first a high object of ambition to be just
and to be generous, to use the advantages of
his position to win in a right way the favor of

The Young Eulek. 303

his fellow-men. But notwithstanding, after all
the successful attempts of his past life, there
was a restlessness, a dissatisfaction in his heart.
He had not reached the goal. He heard Jesus
speak of eternal life, something evidently far
higher than anything he had yet attained, and
he wondered how it was to be got at. No-
thing doubting but that it must be along the
same track that he had hitherto been pursuing,
but by some extra work of extraordinary merit,
he comes to Jesus with the question, " Good
Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may
inherit eternal life ?'7 Jesus saw at once that
he was putting all upon moral goodness, some
higher virtue to be reached by his own effort
entitling him to the eternal life. He saw that
he was so fully possessed with this idea that it
regulated even his conception of Christ's own
personal character, whom he was disposed to
look upon rather as a pre-eminently virtuous
man than one having any peculiar relationship
to God. Checking him, therefore, at the very
first— taking exception to the very form and
manner of his address, he says, " Why callest
thou me good? there is none good but one,
that is, God."

Endeavoring thus to raise his thoughts to the

304 The Last Journey Through Persia.

true source of all real goodness, rather than to
say anything about his own connexion with the
Father, which it is no part of his present ob-
ject to speak about, Jesus takes him first upon
his own ground. There need be no talk about
any one particularly good thing, that behoved
to be done, till it was seen whether the common
acknowledged precepts of God's law had all
been kept. " Thou knowest the command-
ments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill,
Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud
not, Honor thy father and thy mother." As
the easiest instrument of conviction, as the one
that lay entirely in the very region to which
all this youth's thoughts and efforts had been
confined, Jesus restricted himself to quoting the
precepts of the second table of the law, and
says nothing in the meantime about the first.
The young man, hearing the challenge, listens
to the precepts as they are detailed, and
promptly, without apparently a momentary
misgiving, he answers, " All these have I ob-
served from my youth." There was no doubt
great ignorance, great self-deception in this re-
ply. He knew but little of any one of these pre-
cepts in its true significance, in all the strictness,
spirituality, and extent of its requirements, who

The Young Edlee. 305

could venture on any such assertion. Yet
there was sincerity in the answer, and it point-
ed to a bygone life of singular external propri-
ety, and that the fruit not so much of constraint
as of a natural amiableness and conscientious-
ness. As he gave this answer, Jesus beholding
him, loved him. It was new and refreshing to
the Saviour's eye to see such a specimen as this
of truthfulness and purity, of all that was mo-
rally lovely and of good report among the rulers
of the Jews. Here was no hypocrite, no fana-
tic, here was one who had not learned to wear
the garb of sanctimoniousness as a cover for all
kinds of self-indulgence ; here was one free
from the delusion that the strict observance of
certain formulas of devotion would stand in-
stead of the mightier matters of justice and of
charity ; here was one who so far had escaped
the contagion of his age and sect, who was not
seeking to make clean the outside of the cup
and the platter, but was really striving to keep
himself from all that was wrong, and to be to-
wards his fellow-men all that, as he understood
it, God's law required. Jesus looked upon
this man and loved him.

But the very love he bore him prompted
Jesus to subject him to a treatment bearing in

30G The Last Journey Through Perea.

many respects a likeness to that to which he
subjected Nicodemus. With not a little, in-
deed, that was different, there was much that
was alike in the two rulers, — the one who came
to Jesus by night at the beginning of his min-
istry in Judea ; the one who now comes to
him by day at the close of his labors in Persea :
both honest, earnest men, seekers after truth,
and lovers of it in a fashion too, but both ig-
norant and self-deceived ; Nicodemus's error
rather one of the head than of the heart, flow-
ing from an entire misconception of the very
nature of Christ's kingdom ; the young ruler's
one of the heart rather than of the head, flowing
from an inordinate, an idolatrous attachment to
his worldly possessions. In either case Christ's
treatment was quick, prompt, decisive, laying
the axe at once at the root of the evil. Be-
neath all the pleasing show of outward morali-
ties Christ detected in the young ruler's breast
a lamentable want of any true regard to God,
any recognition of his supreme and paramount
claims. His heart, his trust, his treasure, were
in earthly, not in heavenly things. He needed
a sharp lesson to teach him this, to lay bare at
once the tnje state of things within. Christ
was too kind and too skillful a physician to ap-

The Young Euler. 307

ply this or that emollient that might haye power
to allay a symptom or two of the outward irri-
tation. At once he thrusts the probe into the
very heart of the wound. " One thing thou
lackest : go thy way," said he, at once assum-
ing his proper place as the representative of
God and of his claims, — " go thy way, sell
whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor :
and come, take up the cross, and follow me."
The one thing lacking was not the renunciation
of his property in bestowing it upon the poor.
It was a supreme devotedness to God, to duty
— a willingness to give up anything, to give up
everything where God required it to be given
up, when the holding of it was inconsistent with
fidelity to him. This was the one thing lack-
ing. And instead of proclaiming his fatal de-
ficiency in this primary requirement, without
which there could be no true obedience rend-
ered to any part of the Divine law, Christ em-
bodies the claim which he knew the young ruler
was unprepared to honor — in that form which
struck directly at the idol of his heart, and re-
quired its instant and absolute dethronement.

Not for a moment, then, can we imagine
that in speaking to him as he did, Jesus was
issuing a general command, or laying down a

308 The Last Journey Through Per^a.

universal condition of the Christian discipleship,
or that he was even holding up the relinquish-
ment of earthly possessions as an act of pre-
eminent meritoriousness, which all strivers
after Christian perfection should set before
them as the summit to be reached. There is
nothing of all this here. It is a special treat-
ment of a special case. Christ's object being
to frame and to apply a decisive touchstone or
test whereby the condition of that one spirit
might be exposed, he suited with admirable
skill the test to the condition. Had that con-
dition been other than it was, the test employed
had been different. Had it been the love of
pleasure, or the love of power, or the love of
fame, instead of the love of money that had
been the ruling passion, he would have framed
his order so that obedience to it would have de-
manded the crucifixion of the ruling passion,
the renunciation of the one cherished idol.
The only one abiding universal rule that
we are entitled to extract from this dealing of
our Lord with this applicant being this — that
in coming to Christ, in taking on the yoke of
the Christian discipleship, it must be in the
spirit of an entire readiness to part with all that
he requires us to relinquish, and to allow no

The Young Ruleb. 309

idol to usurp that inward throne, that of right
is his.

Christ's treatment, if otherwise it failed, was
in one respect eminently successful. It silenced,
it saddened, it sent away. No answer was at-
tempted. No new question was raised. The
demand was made in such broad, unmitigated,
unambiguous terms, that the young ruler, con-
scious that he had never felt before the extent
or pressure of such a demand, and that he was
utterly unprepared to meet, turned away dis-
appointed and dissatisfied. Jesus saw him go,
let him go, followed him with no importunities,
besought him not to return and to reconsider.
It was not the manner of the Saviour to be
importunate, — you do not find in him any
great urgency or iteration of appeal. When
once in any case enough is said or done, the
individual dealt with is left to his own free
will. Gazing after this young ruler as he de-
parted, Jesus then looked round about, and
saith to his disciples, " How hardly shall they
that have riches enter into the kingdom of
God !" The disciples were astonished at these
words, as well they might. What ! was the
ease or the difficulty of entering into this king-
dom to be measured by the little or by the

310 The Last Journey Theough Per.ua.

more of this world's goods that each man pos-
sessed ? A strange premium this on poverty,
as strange a penalty on wealth. Jesus notices
the surprise that his saying had created, and,
aware of the false track along which his disci-
ples' thoughts were running, in a way as affec-
tionate as it was instructive, proceeded to ex-
plain the real meaning of what he had just
said. " Children, how hard is it for them that
trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of
God !" It is not the having but the trusting
that creates the difficulty. It is not the kind
or the quantity of the wealth possessed, but the
kind or quantity of the attachment that is lav-
ished upon it. The love of the penny may
create as great impediment as the love of the
pound. Nor is it our wealth alone that oper-
ates in this way, that raises a mighty obstacle
in the way of entering into the kingdom. It
is anything else than God and Christ upon
which the supreme affection of the spirit is
bestowed. A new light dawns upon the dis-
ciples' minds as they listen to and begin to com-
prehend the explanation that their Master now
has given, and see the extent to which that ex-
planation goes. They were astonished at the
first, but now the astonishment is more than

The Young Euler. 311

doubled ; for if it indeed be true, that before
any individual of our race can cross the thresh-
old of the kingdom such a shift of the whole
trust and confidence of the heart must take
place, — if every earthly living creature, — at-
tachment must be subordinated to the love of
God and of Jesus Christ his Son, who then can
be saved ? for who can effect this great revolu-
tion within his own heart, who can take the
dearest idol he has known and cast it down in
the dust, who can lay hand upon the usurper
and eject him, who can raise the rightful owner
of it to the throne ? Astonished out of meas-
ure, the disciples say among themselves, " Who
then can be saved ?" Is the question needless
or inappropriate ? Now is the time, if they
have fallen into any mistake, if they are taking
too dark, too gloomy views of the matter, if
there be aught of error or of exaggeration in
the conceptions out of which this question
springs, — now is the time for Jesus to rectify
the error, to remove the misconception. Does
he do so ? Nay, but assuming that it is even
so — as difficult to be saved as they imagine
— his reply is, "With man it is imposible, but
not with God, for with God all things are pos-
sible." Taught then by our Lord himself to

312 The Last Journey Through Per^a.

know what all true entering into his kingdom
implies and presupposes, let us be well assured
that to be saved in his sense of the word is no
such easy thing as many fancy, the difficulty
not lying in any want of willingness on his
part to save us, not in any hindrance whatever
lying there without. All such outward impedi-
ments have been, by his own gracious hand,
and by the work of his dear Son our Saviour,
removed. The difficulty lies within, in our
misplaced affections, in our stubborn and ob-
stinate wills, in hearts that will not let go
their hold of other things to clasp him home to
them as their only satisfying good. Do you
feel the difficulty, — the moral impossibility of
this hindrance being taken away by 'ourselves ?
Then will you pray to him with whom this, as
everything, is possible, that he may turn the
possibility into reality. He has done so in the
case of multitudes as weak, as impotent as you.
He will do it unto you if you desire that it be
done, and commit the doing of it into his
hand3.

XVI.

JESUS AT JERICHO THE REQUEST OF THE SONS

OF ZEBEDEE.*

NO district of the Holy Land is more unlike
what it once was and what it still might
be than that in which Jericho, the city of
palms, once stood. Its position, commanding
the two chief passes up to the hill country of
Judea and Samaria, the depth and fertility of
its well-watered soil, and the warmth of its
tropical climate, early indicated it as the site
of a city which should not only be the capital of
the surrounding territory, but the protection
of all western Palestine against invaders from
the east. Joshua found it so when he crossed
the Jordan ; and as his first step towards the
conquest of the country which lay beyond, laid
siege to a city which had walls broad enough
to have houses built upon them, and whose

* Matt. xx. 17-3-i ; Mark x. 2-52 ; Luke xviii. 35-4.3, xx. 2-10.

314 Jesus at Jepjcho.

spoil when taken, its gold and its silver, its
vessels of brass and of iron, its goodly Babylon-
ish garments, bore evidences of affluence and
of traffic. No town in all the territory which
the Israelites afterwards acquired westward of
Jordan could compete with Jericho. It fell,
was reduced to ruins, and the curse of Joshua
pronounced upon the man who attempted to
raise again its walls.* In the days of Ahab
that attempt was made, and though the
threatened evil fell upon the maker, the city
rose from its ruins to enter upon another stage
of progressive prosperity, which reached its
highest point" when Herod the Great selected
it as one of his favorite resorts, beautified it
with towers and palaces, becoming so attached
to it that, feeling his last illness to have come
upon him, he retired there to die. Soon after
his death the town was plundered, and some
of its finest buildings were destroyed. These,
however, were speedily restored to all their
original splendor by Archelaus and as he left

* Within two miles of it, sharing in all its great natural advan-
tages, stood Gilgal, the first encampment of the Israelites, where
the ark stood till its removal to Shiloh, which we read of as one
of the stations to which Samuel resorted in administering justice
throughout the country, where the tribes so often met in the dayo
of Saul, to which the men of Judah went down to welcome David
tack again to Jerusalem.

Jesus at Jebicho. 315

it Josephus lias described it — its stately build-
ings rising up among groves of palm-trees miles
m length, with gardens scattered round, in
which all the chief flowers and fruits of eastern
lands grew up in the greatest luxuriance. The
rarest and most precious among them, the bal-
sam , a treasure " worth its own weight in sil-
ver, for which kings made war,"* " so that he,"
says the Jewish historian, as he warms in his
recital of all its glories, " he who should pro-
nounce the place to be divine would not be
mistaken, wherein is such plenty of trees pro-
duced as is very rare, and of the most excel-
lent sort. And, indeed, if we speak of these
other fruits, it will not be easy to light on any
climate in the habitable earth that can well be
compared to it."

And such as Josephus has described was Je-
richo and the country around when Christ's eye
rested on them, in descending into the valley
of the Jordan, and above the tops of the palm-
trees, and the roofs of the palaces, he saw the
trace of the road that led up to Jerusalem.
None beside the twelve had gone with him into
the retreats of Ephraim and Percea. But now

* Martineau.

316 Jesus at Jeeicho.

he is on the track of the companies from the
north, who are going up to the Passover, that
is to be celebrated at the close of the follow-
ing week. The time, the company, the road,
all serve to bring up to the Saviour's thoughts
events that are now so near, to him of such
momentous import. A spirit of eager impa-
tience to be baptized with the impending bap-
tism seizes upon him, and gives a strange
quickness and a forwardness to his movements.
His talk, his gait, his gestures all betoken how
absorbed he is ; the eye and thought away from
the present, from all around, fixed upon some
future, the purport of which has wonder-
fully excited him. His hasty footsteps carry
him on before his fellow-travellers. "'Jesus
went before them,'7 St. Mark tells us, "and
they were amazed ; and as they followed they
were afraid." There was that in his aspect,
attitude, and actions that filled them with won-
der and with awe. It was not long till an ex-
planation was offered them. He took the
twelve aside, and once again, as twice before,
but now with still greater minuteness and par-
ticularity of detail, told them what was about
to happen within a few days at Jerusalem, how
he was to be delivered into the hands of the

Jesus at Jekxcho. 317

Jewish rulers, and how they were to deliver
him into the hands of the Gentiles, how he was
to be mocked and scourged, and spit upon and
crucified, till all things that were written by
the prophets concerning him should be accom-
plished, and how on the third day he was to
rise again. Everything was told so plainly
that we may well wonder that any one could
have been at any loss as to Christ's meaning :
but the disciples, we are told, " understood none
of these things, and the sayings were hid from
them, neither knew they the things which were
spoken." This only proves what a blinding
power preconception and misconception have
in hiding the simplest things told in the simplest
language — a blinding power often exercised
over us now as to the written, as it was then
exercised over the apostles as to their Master's
spoken words. The truth is, that these men
were utterly unprepared at the time to take in
the real truth as to what was to happen to their
Master. They had made up their minds, on
the best of evidence, that he was the Messiah.
He had himself lately confirmed them in that
faith. But they had their own notions of the
Messiahship. With these such sufferings and
and such a death as were actually before Jasus

318 Jesus at Jericho.

were utterly inconsistent. They could be but
figurative expressions, then, that he had em-
ployed, intended, perhaps, to represent some
severe struggle with his adversaries through
which he had to pass before his kingdom was
set up and acknowledged.

One thing alone was clear — that the time so
long looked forward to had come at last. This
visit to Jerusalem was to witness the erection
of the kingdom. All other notions lost in that,
the thought of the particular places they were
to occupy in that kingdom entered again into
the hearts of two of the apostles — that pair of
brothers who, from early adherence, and the
amount of sacrifice they had made, and the
marked attention that on more than one occa-
sion Jesus had paid to them, might naturally
enough expect that if special favors were to
be dispensed to any, they would not be over-
looked. James and John tell their mother
Salome, who has met them by the way, all that
they have lately noticed in the manner of their
Master, and all that he has lately spoken, point-
ing to the approaching Passover as the season
when the manifestation of the kingdom was to
be made. Mother and sons agree to go to
Jesus with the request that in his kingdom and

Jesus at Jekicho. 319

glory the one brother should sit upon his right
hand and the other upon his left, a request that
in all likelihood took its particular shape and
form from what Jesus had said but a few days
before, when, in answer to Peter's question.
" Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed
thee ; what shall we have therefore ? And
Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you,
That ye which have followed me in the regen-
eration, when the Son of man shall sit in the
throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon
twelves thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
Israel."* What could these thrones, this judg-
ing be ? Little wonder that the apostles' minds
were set a-speculating by what still leaves us,
after all speculating, about as much in the
dark as ever. But while Salome and James
and John were proffering their request, and
trying to pre-engage the places of highest
honor, where was Peter? It had not come
into his thoughts to seek a private interview
with his Master for such a purpose. He had
no mother by his side to fan the flame that was
as ready to kindle in his as in any of their
breasts. That without any thought of one

* Matt. six. 27, 28.

320 Jesus at Jebicho.

whose natural claims were as good as theirs,
James and John should have gone to Jesus and
made the request they did, satislies us at least
of this, that it was not the understanding
among the twelve that when the Lord had
spoken to Peter as he did after his good con-
fession, he had assigned to him the primacy, or
indeed any particular pre-eminence, over the
rest.

" Ye know not what ye ask.'7 They did it
ignorantly, and so far they obtain mercy of the
Lord. What it was to be placed on his right
and on his left in the scenes that awaited him
in Jerusalem, two at least of the three peti-
tioners, John and Salome, shall soon know as
they stand gazing upon the central cross of
Calvary. " Can ye drink of the cup that 1
drink of ? and be baptized with the baptism
that I am baptized with ? They say, We can."
From this reply it would appear that the disci-
ples understood the Lord as asking them
whether they are prepared to drink along with
him some cup of sorrow that was about soon
to be put into his bands, to be baptized along
with him in some baptism of fire to which he
was about to be subjected. They are prepared,
they think that they can follow him, they are

Jesus at Jeeicho. 321

willing to take their part m whatever suffering
such following shall entail. Through all the
selfishness, and the ambition, and the great ig-
norance of the future that their request revealed,
there shone out in this prompt and no doubt
perfectly sincere and honest reply, a true and
deep attachment to their Master, a readiness to
suffer with him or for him. And he is far
quicker to recognize the one than to condemn
the other. " Ye shall indeed drink of the cup
that I drink of ; and with the baptism that I
am baptized withal shall ye be baptized." 'You,
James, shall be the first among the twelve that
shall seal your testimony with your blood.
You, John, shall have the longest if not the
largest experience of what the bearing of the
cross shall bring with it. But to sit on my
right and on my left in my kingdom and my
glory ; ask me not for that honor as if it were
a thing in the conferring of which I am at lib-
erty to consult my own individual will or taste
or humor. It is not mine so to dispense. It
is mine to give, but only to those for whom it
is prepared of my Father, and who by the
course of discipline through which he shall pas?
them shall be duly prepared for it.

James and John have to be content with

322 Jesus at Jericho.

such reply. Their application, though made
to Christ when alone, soon after became known
to others, and excites no small stir among them.
Which of them indeed may cast the first stone
at the two ? They had all been quarreling
among themselves not long before, as to which
of them should be greatest. And they shall
all ere long be doing so again. Christ's word
of rebuke as he hears of this contention is for
all as well as for James and John. He tells
us that no such kind of authority and power as
is practiced in earthly government — the author-
ity of men, rank, or power carrying it dictato-
rially and tyrannically over subjects and de-
pendents— is to be admitted among his disci-
ples ; greatness among them being a thing to
be measured not by the amount of power pos-
sessed, but by the amount of service rendered,
by their greater likeness to the Son of Man,
" who came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister, and to give his life a ransom for
many." The contention is thus momentarily
hushed, to break out again, when it shall re-
ceive a still more impressive rebuke.

Jesus and his disciples, and a great multitude
of people who had joined themselves to him by
the way, now drew near to Jericho, Of what

Jesus at Jeeichg. 323

occurred in and near the city I offer no contin-
uous narrative, for it is difficult to frame such
out of the details which the different Evange-
lists present. St. Mark and St. Luke tell us
of one blind man only who was healed. St.
Matthew tells us of two. Two of the three
Evangelists speak of the healing as having oc-
curred on Christ's departure out of town, the
third of its having taken place on his entrance
into it. We may conclude with certainty that
there were two, and we may conjecture that
there were three blind men cured on this oc-
casion. In a city so large as Jericho then was,
computed to contain well-nigh 100,000 inhabi-
tants,— the number swelled by the strangers
on their way to the Passover, — it would not
surprise us that more cases than one of the
kind described should have occurred. One
general remark upon this and all similar dis-
crepancies in the Gospel narratives may be
offered. It is quite enough to vindicate the
entire truthfulness of- each separate account,
that we can imagine some circumstance or cir-
cumstances omitted by all, the occurrence of
which would enable us to reconcile them. How
often does it happen that two or three witnesses
each tell what they saw and heard ; their testi-

324 Jesus at Jeeicho.

monies taken by themselves present almost
insuperable difficulties in the way of reconcil-
ing them ; yet when the whole in all its minute
details is known, the key is then put into our
hands by which the apparent discord is at once
removed. And when the whole never can be
known, is it not the wisest course to let the
discrepancies remain just as we find them ;
satisfied if we can imagine any way by which
all that each narrator says is true ?

This can easily enough be done in the case
before us. Satisfied with this, let us fix our
attention on the stories of Bartimeus and Zac-
cheus, on the two striking incidents by which
our Lord's entrance into and exit from Jericho
were made forever memorable. How different
in all the outward circumstances of their lot in
life were these two men ! — the one a poor
blind beggar, the other among the richest men
in the community. The revenues derived
from the palm-trees and balsam-gardens of
Jericho were so great, that the grant of them
was one of the richest gifts which Antony pre-
sented Cleopatra. Herod farmed them of the
latter, and intrusted the collection of them to
these publicans, of whom Zaccheus was the
chief. His position was one enabling him to

Jesus at Jeeicho. 325

realize large gains, and we may believe that of
that position he had taken the full advantage.
Unlike in other things, in this Bartiineus and
Zaccheus were at one,— in their eagerness,
their earnestness, their perseverance, their
resolution to use all possible means to over-
come all obstacles thrown in the way of their
approach to Christ. The poor blind beggar
sits beneath the shade of some towering palm,
waiting to salute each stray passenger as he
goes by, and solicit alms. Suddenly he hears
the tread as of a great multitude approaching.
lie wonders what it can be. He asks ; they
tell him that Jesus of Nazareth is coming, and
is about to pass by. Jesus of Nazareth ! he
had heard of him before, heard of healings
wrought by him, of blind eyes opened, of dead
men raised. Many a time in his darkness, in
his solitude, as he sat alone by the wayside, he
had pondered who this great miracle- worker
could be, and he had come to the conclusion
that he could be uo other than the Son of
David, the Messiah promised to their fathers.
It had never crossed his thoughts that he and
this Jesus should ever meet, when now they
tell him that he is near at hand, will soon be
passing by. He can, he may do that for him

326 Jesus at Jericho.

which none but he can do. The whole faith
and hope of his spirit breathed into it, he lifts
the loud and eager cry, " Jesus, Son of David
have mercy on me." They check him, they
blame him, in every way they can they try to
stop him. He cries "the more a great deal ;"
it is his one and only chance. lie will not
lose it, he will do all he can to reach that ear,
to arrest that passer-by. He cries the more
a great deal, " Son of David, have mercy on
me."

So it is with the poor blind beggar, and so
is it with the rich publican. lie too hears that
Jesus of Nazareth is coming into Jericho. He
too has heard much about the Nazarene. He
is living now, he may have been living then, in
the very neighborhood where John the Baptist
taught, where Jesus was himself baptized. The
gospel of the kingdom as preached by both, the
gospel of repentance, of turning from all inquity
and bringing forth fruits meet for repentance,
was familiar to his ears. The Baptist's answer
to publicans when they came to him, " Exact
no more than that which is appointed you,"
had sunk into his heart. That was the kingdom,
the kingdom of truth, of righteousness, into
which now above all things he desired to enter

Jesus at Jericho. 327

With a conscience quickened, a heart melted
and subdued, we know not how, he hears that
Jesus is at hand. What would he not give even
for a sight of one whom secretly he has learned
to reverence and to love ! He goes out, but
there is a crowd coming ; he cannot stand its
pressure ; he is little of stature, and in the bus-
tle and the throng will not be able even to
catch a sight of Jesus. A happy thought oc-
curs : he sees behind him a large tree which
casts its branching arms across the path. He
runs and climbs up into the tree. He cares
not for the ridicule with which he may be as-
sailed. He cares not for the grotesque position
which he, the rich man and the honorable, may
be seen to occupy. He is too bent upon his
purpose to let that or anj^thing stand in the
way of the accomplishment of his desire.

And now let us notice how these two men
are treated. Jesus stands still as he comes
near the spot where poor Bartimeus stands and
cries, points to him, and tells those around him.
to go and bring him into his presence. The
crowd halts. The messengers do Christ's bidding.
And now the very men who had been rebuking
Bartimeus for his too loud and too impatient
entreaties, touched with pity, say, "Be of good

328 Jesus at Jeeicho.

comfort, rise, he calleth thee." He does not
need to be told a second time, he does not wait
for any guiding hands to lead him to the centre
of the path. His own quick ear has fixed the
point from which the summons comes. His own
ready arm flings aside the rude garment that he
had worn, which might hinder him in his move-
ment. A few eager footsteps taken, he stands in
the presence of the Lord. Nor has he then to
renew his supplication. Jesus is the first to
speak. " What wilt thou that I should do unto
thee ?" There are not many things among
which to choose. There is that one thing that
above all others he would have done. " Lord.;?
says he, " that I might receive my sight.".
And Jesus said, "Receive thy sight, go thy
way ; thy faith hath made thee whole. And im-
mediately he received his sight."

See now how it fares with Zaccheus. He
has got up into the tree, he is sitting there
among its branches, half hoping that, seeing all,
he may remain himself unseen. The crowd
comes up. He does not need to ask which is
the one he desires so much to see. There he
is, the centre of the throng, his calm, majestic,
benignant look and bearing marking him off
from all around. The eyes of the chief publi-

Jesus at Jeeicho. 329

can are bent upon him in one fixed concen-
trated gaze of wonder and of love, when a new
ground of wonder and of gratitude is given.
Here too Jesus stops, and looking up lie names
him by his name, as if he had known him long
and well. " Zaccheus," he said, "make haste
and come down ; for to-day I must abide at thy
house."

Such is the free spontaneous mercy in either
case exercised by our Lord, such is the way in
which he meets simplicity of faith, ardor of
desire, strenousness of effort, as seen in the
blind beggar and in the rich publican. And
what in either case is the return ? " Go thy
way," said Jesus to Bartimeus. He did not
go, he could not go. His blinded eyes are
opened. The first object they rest on is their
opener. Bright shines the sun above — fair is
that valley of the Jordan — gorgeous the foli-
age of the palm and the sycamore, the acacia
and the balsam-tree. New and wondrous
sights to him, but he sees them not, or heeds
them not. That fresh faculty of vision is ex-
ercised on him by whom it had been bestowed,
and upon him all the wealth of its power is lav-
ished. And him "he follows, glorifying God."
Not otherwise is it with Zaccheus : "Make

330 Jesus at Jericho.

haste," said Jesus, "and come down. And he
made haste and came down, and received
Christ joyfully," little heeding the derisive
looks cast on him as he made his quick descent
the murmurings that arose from the multitude
as he received Jesus into his house. The
threshold is scarcely crossed when he stands in
all humility before Jesus and says., " Behold,
Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor ;
and if I have taken anything from any man by
false accusation, I restore him fourfold." One
scarce can tell whether he is describing a prac-
tice for some time previously pursued, or a
purpose then for the first time in the presence
of Jesus deliberately taken. In either case
the evidence of a true repentance on his part is
the same. The man among the Jews who gave
the fifth part of his income to the poor was
counted as having reached the height of per-
fection as to almsgiving. Zaccheus gives one-
half, and not one-fifth. The law of Moses re-
quired in one special case alone that a fourfold
restitution should be made. Zaccheus in every
instance in which he can remember that by
any dishonorable practice on his part any man
had suffered loss, promises that restitution to
that extent should be made to him. Jesus,

Jesus at Jericho. 331

accepting the evidence of a true repentance
that is thus presented, makes no criticism upon
the course of conduct indicated, suggests no
change, but says, "This day is salvation come
to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of
Abraham " — once a lost sheep of the chosen
fold, lost, but now found by the good Shep-
herd, and by him welcomed back, — " for the
Son of man," he adds " is come to seek and to
save that which was lost."

One general feature of these incidents at
Jericho let us now glance at, as singularly ap-
propriate to this particular period of our Lord's
history, — the absence of all reserve, the full
disclosure of himself and of his redemption
which he makes. Other blind men had called
him the Son of David, but he had straitly
charged them not to make him known. No
such charge is given to Bartimeus. He is per-
mitted to follow him and glorify God as loudly,
as amply as he can. Not till the last stage of
his ministry in the north had he ever spoken
even to his disciples of his death. Now he not
cnly speaks of them more plainly and explicitly
than ever before, but he goes on to announce
the great intention and object of his death.
The Son of man, he declares, is come "to give

£32 Jesus at Jericho.

his life a ransom for many, to seek and to save
that which was lost." Thus it is, as the time
is now so near, and as all the reasons for that
reserve which Jesus had previously studied are
removed, that he holds up his death as the pay-
ment of the great price of our redemption, the
ransom given by the Living One for the lost.

Two better instances illustrative of how the
sinner and the Saviour are brought together, of
what true faith is, and what true repentance,
you could not well desire, than those of Barti-
meus and Zaccheus, capable each of manifold
spiritual applications. We can but gather up
the general warnings and great encourage-
ments that they convey. Sinners we all by na-
ture and practice are — as poor, as blind, as
beggared as Bartimeus was — as thoughtless,
careless, reckless, worldly-minded as Zaccheus.
And Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. It is but
a single da}' we have for meeting with him, that
short day of life, the twelve hours of which are
so swiftly running out. Let us but be as ear-
nest to see him as those two men were, as care-
less of what others say or do, as resolute to
overcome all difficulties, and we shall find that
he will be as ready to hear, to heal, to come to
us, to take up his abode with us, to bring sal-

Jesus at Jericho 333

vation with him, to gather us, the lost, into the
fold of the saved.

Jericho is changed from what it was. So
little is left of the city, of its hippodrome and
amphitheatre, its towers and its palaces, that it
is difficult to determine its site. Its gardens
and its groves are gone, not one solitary palm-
tree for a poor blind beggar to sit beneath, nor
a sycamore for any one to climb. The City
of Fragrance it was called of old. There re-
mains now but the fragrance of those deeds of
grace and mercy done there by him who in
passing through it closed his earthly journey-
ings, and went up thence to Jerusalem to die.

XYII.

HE ANOINTING AT BETHANY.*

IN the whole bearing and conduct of Jesus
in and about Jericho there was much to
indicate that some great crisis in his history
was at hand. It does not surprise us to be
told of the disciples believing " that the king-
dom of God should immediately appear." It
was because he knew that they were so mis-
conceiving the future that lay before him and
them, that, either in the house of Zaccheus, or
afterwards on the way up to Jerusalem, Jesus
addressed to them the parable of the Pounds.
He would have them know, and could they
but have penetrated the meaning of that para-
ble they would have seen, that so far from any
6uch kingdom as they were dreaming of being
about to be set up for him in Jerusalem, he
was going through the dark avenue of death to
another, to a far country, to receive the king-

* Matt. xxvi. 6-13 ; Mark xiv. 3-9 ; John xii. 1-8.

The Anointing at Bethany. 335

dom there, and after a long interval to return ;
and that, so far from their being about to share
the honors and rewards of a newly erected em-
pire, they were to be left without a head, each
man to occupy and to labor till he came again.
Another parable, that of the Laborers in the
Vineyard, spoken but a day or two before, had
a kindred object— was intended to check the
too eager and ambitious thirst for the distinc-
tions and recompences that the apostles imag-
ined were on the eve of being dispensed. The
addressing of two such parables as these to his
disciples, with the specific object of rectifying
what he knew to be their false ideas and ex-
pectations, the readiness with which he listened
to the cry of the blind beggars by the wayside,
and the interest that he took in the chief of the
publicans, conspire to show how far from a
mere narrow or selfis'h one was the interest
with which Jesus looked forward to what was
awaiting him in Jerusalem. During the two
days' journey from Persea through Jericho to
the holy city, his thoughts were often and ab-
sorbingly fixed on his approaching sufferings
and death, but it was not so much in their
isolated and personal as in their public and
world-wide bearings and issues that he was

336 The Anointing at Bethany.

contemplating thern ; nor had the contempla-
tion any such effect as to make him less atten-
tive to the state of thought and feeling prevail-
ing among his disciples, or less ready to be in-
terested in those who, like Bartimeus and Zac-
cheus, threw themselves in his way.

In coming down into the valley of the Jor-
dan, Jesus had joined the large and growing
stream of people from the north and the east,
passing up to the approaching Passover. There
would be many Galileans among the group
who had not seen him now for many months,
and who, if they had not heard of it before,
must have heard now at Jericho of all that had
happened at the two preceding Feasts of Taber-
nacles and Dedication, of his last great miracle
at Bethany, of the great excitement that had
been created, and of the resolution of the San-
hedrim to put him to death. And now he goes
up to face these rulers, to throw himself, as
they fancy, upon the support of the people, to
unfold the banner of the new kingdom, and
call on all his followers to rally round it. His
Galilean friends heartily go in with what they
take to be his design ; they find the people
generally concurring in and disposed to further
them. One can imagine what was thought

The Anointing at Bethany. 337

and felt, and hoped and feared, by those who
accompanied Jesus as he left Jericho. A few
hours' walk would now carry him and them to
the metropolis. It was Friday, the 8th day of
their Jewish month Nisan. The next day was
Saturday, their Jewish Sabbath. On the Thurs-
day following the lamb was to be slain, and
the Passover festival to commence. The great
body of the travellers press on, to get into the
town before the sunset, when the Sabbath com-
mences. Jesus and his apostles turn aside at
Bethany, where the house of Martha and Mary
and Lazarus stands open to receive them.
Here in this peaceful retreat the next day is
spent, a quiet Sabbath for our Lord before
entering on the turmoil of the next few days.
The companions of his last day's journey have
in the meantime passed into Jerusalem. It is
already thronged with those who had come jp
from the country to purify themselves for the
feast. With one and all the engrossing topic is
Jesus of Nazareth. Gathering in the courts of
the Temple, they ask about him, they hear
what has occurred ; they find that "both the
chief priests and the Pharisees had given a
commandment, that if any man knew where he
was, he should show it, that they might take

338 The Anointing at Bethany.

him." What, in the face of such an order, will
Jesus do? " What think ye," they say to one
another, "that he will not come to the feast?"
But now they hear from the newly arrived
from Jericho that he is coming, means to be at
the feast, is already at Bethany. They hear
that Lazarus, the man whom he so recently
raised from the dead, is also there. He may
not have been there till now. He may have
accompanied Jesus to Ephraim, or chosen some
other place of temporary retreat, for a bitter
enmity had sprung up against him as well as
against Jesus. " The chief priests had consult-
ed that they might put Lazarus also to death,
because that by reason of him many of the
Jews believed on Jesus." Whether he had
retired for a time or not, Lazarus is now at
Bethany. Many, unable to restrain their curi-
osity, go out to the village, " not for Jesus' sake
only, but that they might see Lazarus also."
It was but a short distance, not much more
than the Sabbath-day's journey. During this
day, while Jesus and Lazarus are there together,
many visitors go forth to feast their eyes upon
the sight, and on returning to quicken the ex-
citement among the multitude.

It was on the evening of the Saturday, when

The Anointing at Bethany 339

the Sabbath was over, and the next, the first
day of the week, had begun, that they made
Jesus a supper in the house of Simon, who
once had been a leper, some near relative in
all likelihood of the family of Lazarus, and
Jesus sits at this feast between the one whom
he had cured of his leprosy and the other
whom he had raised from the dead. Martha
serves. She had not so read the rebuke be-
fore administered to her as to believe that
serving — the thing that she most liked, to which
her disposition and her capabilities at once
prompted her — was in itself unlawful or im-
proper, that her only duty was to sit and listen.
But she had so profited by the rebuke that,
concerned as she is that all due care be taken
that this feast be well got through, she turns
now no jealous look upon her sister, leaves
Mary without murmuring or reproach to do as
she desires. And Mary seizes the opportunity
now given. She has not now Jesus to herself.
She cannot, as in the privacy of her own dwell-
ing, sit down at his feet to listen to the gracious
words coming from his lips. But she has an
alabaster phial of fragrant ointment — her cost-
liest possession — one treasured up for some
unknown but great occasion. That occasion

340 The Anointing at Bethany.

has arrived. She gets it, brings it, approaches
Jesus as he sits reclining at the table, pours
part of its contents upon his head, and resolves
that its whole contents shall be expended upon
this office. She compresses the yielding .ma-
terial of which the phial was composed, breaks
it, and pours the last drop of it upon his feet,
flinging away the relics of the broken vessel,
and wiping his feet with her hair. Kingly
guest, at royal banquet could not have had a
costlier homage of the kind rendered to him.
That Mary had in her*possession so rich a trea-
sure may be accepted as one of the many signs
that her family was one of the wealthiest in the
village. That she now took and spent the
whole of it upon Jesus, was but a final expres-
sion of the fullness and the intensity of her de-
votion and her love.

Half hidden behind the Saviour's reclining
form, she might have remained unnoticed, but
the fragrant odor rose and filled the house, and
drew attention to her deed. Cold „nd search-
ing and jealous eyes are upon her, shiefly those
of one. who never had any cordial love to
Jesus, who never had truly sympathized with
the homage rendered him, who held the bag,
had got himself appointed keeper of the small

The Anointing at Bethany. 341

purse they bad in common, who already had
been tampering with the trust, and greedily
filching from the narrow stores committed to
his care. Love so ardent, consecration so en
tire, sacrifice so costly, as that of Mary, he
could not appreciate. He disliked it, con-
demned it j it threw such a reproach by con-
trast upon his own feeling and conduct to
Christ. And now to his envious, avaricious
spirit it appears that he has got good ground
for censure. He had been watching the move-
ments of Mary, had seen her bring forth the
phial, had measured its size, had gauged the
quantity, estimated the quality, and calculated
the value of its contents. And now he turns
to his fellow-disciples, and whispers in their
ears the invidious question, " Why was not this
ointment sold for three hundred pence, and
given to the poor ?" Three hundred pence !
equal to the hire of a laborer for a whole year,
— a sum capable of relieving many a child of
poverty, of bringing relief to many a house of
want. Had Judas got the money into his own
hands, instead of being all lavished on this act
of outward attention, had it been thrown into
the common stock, it would not have been
upon the poor that it should have been spent.

342 The Anointing at Bethany.

He would have managed that no small part of
the money should have had a very different di-
rection given to it. But it serves his mean mali-
cious object to suggest that such might have
been its destination. And by his craft, which
has a show in it of a wise and thoughtful
benevolence, he draws more than one of his
fellow-apostles along with him, so that not
loud but deep, the murmuring runs round the
table, and they say to one another, "To what
purpose is this waste ? this ointment might
have been sold for so much, and given to the
poor."

Mary hears the murmuring, sees the eyes
of one and another turned askance and con-
demuingly upon her, shrinks under the detract-
ing criticism of the Lord's own apostles, begins
to wonder whether she may not have done
something wrong, been guilty of a piece of ex-
travagance which even Jesus may perhaps con-
demn. It had been hard for her before to
bear the reproach of her bustling sister, but
harder a thousand times to bear the reproach
of the twelve. But neither then nor now did
she make any answer, offer any defence of
herself. She did not need. She had one to
do that office for her far better than she could

The Anointing at Bethany. 343

have done it for herself. Jesus is there to
throw the mantle of his protection over her, to
explain and vindicate her deed. "Let her
alone," he said, "why trouble ye the woman?
she hath wrought a good work upon me." He
might have singled out the first adverse criti-
ciser of Mary's act, the suggester and propaga-
tor of the censorious judgment that was mak-
ing its round of the table. Then and there he
might have exposed the hollowness, the hypo-
crisy of the pretence about his caring for the
poor, upon which the condemnation of Mary
was based. And doing so, he might have
made the others blush that they had given
such ready ear to a speech that such a mean
and malignant spirit had first broached. He
did not do this, at least he said nothing that
had any peculiar and exclusive reference to
Judas. But there must have been something
in our Lord's manner, — a look perhaps, such
as he bent afterwards on Peter in the judg-
ment-hall,— that let Judas know that before
Jesus he stood a detected thief and hypocrite.
And it was not to weep bitterly that he went
forth from that supper, but with a spirit so
galled and fretted that he took the earliest
opportunity that occurred to him to commune

344 The Anointing at Bethany.

with the chief priests and the Temple guard as
to how he might betray his Master, and de-
liver him into their hands.

Losing sight of him, let us return to Christ's
defence of Mary. " She hath done a good
work," he said, ' a noble work, one not only
far from ceusure, but worthy of all praise.
She hath done it unto me, done it out of pure
deep love — a love that will bring the best, the
costliest thing she has, and think it no waste,
but rather its fittest, worthiest application, to
bestow it upon me.' Upon that ground alone,
upon his individual claims as compared with all
others, Jesus might well have rested his vindi-
cation of Mary's act. Nay, might he not have
taken the censure of her as a disparagement
of himself? All these his general claims, —
which go to warrant the highest, costliest, most
self-sacrificing services that an enthusiastic
piety can render, — he in this instance is con-
tent to waive, fixing upon the peculiarity of
his existing position and the specialty of the
particular service that she has rendered, as
supplying of themselves an ample justification
of the deed that had been condemned. The
claims of the poor had been set up, as if they
stood opposed to any such expenditure of prop-

The Anointing at Bethany. 345

erty as that made by Mary in this anointing of the
Saviour. It was open to Christ to say that it was
an altogether needless, false, injurious conflict
thus sought to be stirred up, — as if to give to
him, to do anything for him, were to take so
much from the poor ; as if no portion of the great
fund of the Church :s wealth was available for
any purely devout and religious purpose till all
the wants of all the poor were met and satisfied
— the wants, be it remembered, of such a kind
that though we supplied them all to-day, would
emerge in some new form to-morrow — wants
which it is impossible so to deal with as wholly
and permanently to relieve. He is no enlight-
ened pleader for the poor who would represent
them and their necessities as standing in
the way of the indulgence of those warm im-
pulses of love to Christ, out of which princely
benefactions, as well as many a deed of heroic
self-sacrifice, have emanated. The spirit of
Judas, indeed — cold, calculating, carping, dis-
paraging,— has often crept even into the Chris-
tian society, and men bearing the name of
Jesus have often been ready, when great dona-
tions on behalf of some strictly religious enter
prise were spoken of, to condemn them off-
hand on this one ground, that it would have

346 The Anointing at Bethany.

been much better had the money been bestowed
upon the poor. Just as when a large estate
was sold in this country, the proprietor, seized
with a favorite idea, having resolved to devote
the entire proceeds of the sale to Christian
missions in India, there were not wanting those
who said — I quote now the words of one of
them — " What a mad scheme this of Haldane's !
How many poor people might that money
have fed and clothed?" The world, let us
bless God for it, is not so poor that there is
but one way — that, namely, of almsgiving —
for gratifying those generous impulses which
visit the heart and impel to acts of singular lib-
erality. He who put it into the heart of Mary
to do what she did towards the person of
Christ, has put it into the hearts of others
since to do like things towards his cause. And
if in many such like instances there be more of
mere emotion, more of the indulgence of indi-
vidual taste than of staid and wise-hearted
Christian benevolence, let us not join with the
condemners of them, unless we be prepared to
put a check upon all the free, spontaneous ex-
pressions of those sentiments of veneration,
gratitude, and love to Jesus Christ, out of
which some of the most chivalrous and heroic

The Anointing at Bethany. 347

deeds have sprung by which the history of our
race has been adorned.

It is, however, as has been already said, upon
somewhat narrower ground that Christ vindi-
cates the act of Mary. It was one of such per-
sonal attention to him as could be shown to
him only while he was present in the flesh.
"The poor," said he, "ye have with you al-
ways, and whensoever ye will ye may do them
good, but me ye have not always." Further
still, it was one that but once only in all his
earthly life could be shown to Jesus, for " in
that she hath poured this ointment on me, she
is come aforehand to anoint my body for the
burial." Had Mary any definite idea that she
was doing beforehand what Joseph and Nico-
demus would have no time and opportunity for
doing, what the two other Marys would go out
to do to find only that the need for its being
done was over and gone ? It may be assuming
too much for her to believe that with a clearer
insight and a simpler faith in what Jesus had
said than had been yet reached by any of the
twelve, she anticipated the death and burial of
her Master was near at hand. But neither can
we think that she acted without some vague
presentiment that she was seizing upon a last

348 The Anointing at Bethany.

opportunity, that the days of such intercourse
with Jesus were drawing to an end. She knew
the perils to which he would be exposed when-
ever he entered Jerusalem. She had heard him
speak of his approaching sufferings and death.
To others the words might appear to be withou*
meaning, or only to be allegorically interpreted
but the quick instinct of her deeper love ha<?
refused to regard them so, and they had filled
her bosom with an indefinite dread. The near-
er the time for losing, the more intense became
the clinging to him. Had she believed as the
others around her did, had she looked forward
to a speedy triumph of Jesus over all his ene-
mies, and to the visible erection of his kingdom,
would she have chosen the time she did for the
anointing ? would she not have reserved to a
more fitting opportunity a service that was more
appropriate to the crowning of a new monarch
than the preparing of a living body for the
tomb ? In speaking as he did, Jesus may have
been only attributing to Mary a fuller under-
standing of and simpler faith in his own pro-
phetic utterances than that possessed at the
time by any of his disciples. Such a conception
of her state of mind and heart would elevate
Mary to a still higher pinnacle than that ordi-

The Anointing at Bethany. 349

narily assigned to her, and we can see no good
reason for doubting that it was even so.

But it does not require that we should
assign to her any such pre-eminence of faith.
It was the intensity of the personal attachment
to Jesus that her act expressed which drew
down upon it the encomium of the Lord.
Thus he had to say of it what he could say of
so few single services of any of his followers —
that in it she did what she could, did all she
could — in that direction there was not a step
further that she could have taken. Of all like
ways and forms of expressing attachment there
was not a higher one that she could have cho-
sen. Her whole heart of love went out in the
act, and therefore Jesus said of it. " Verily I
say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be
preached throughout the whole world, this also
that she hath done shall be spoken of for
a memorial of her," — the one and only case in
which Jesus ever spoke of the after earthly
fame of any service rendered to him, predict-
ing for it such a wide-spread reputation and
such an undying remembrance. Thus said
Chrysostom, when discoursing upon this inci-
dent, " While the victories of many kings and
generals are lost in silence, and many who

350 The Anointing at Bethany.

have founded states and reduced nations to
subjection, are not known by reputation or by
name, the pouring of ointment by this woman
is celebrated throughout the whole world.
Time hath passed away, but the memory of the
deed she did hath not waned away. But Per-
sians and Indians and Scythians and Thracians/
and the race of the Mauritanians, and they who
inhabit the British Isles, publish abroad an act
which was done in Judea privately in a house
by a woman." Fourteen hundred years have
passed and gone since, in the great church of
St. Sophia at Constantinople, Ghrysostom ut-
tered these words, referring to these British
Isles as one of the remotest places of .the then
known world. The centuries that have rolled
by since then have witnessed many a revolution,
not the least wonderful among them the place
that these British Isles now occupy, but still
wider and wider is the tale of Mary's anointing
of her Master being told, the fragrance of the
ointment spreading, yet losing nothing of its
sweetness, such fresh vitality, such self-pre-
serving power, k>dging in a simple act of pure
and fervid love.

One single parting glance let us cast upon
our Saviour as he presents himself to our eye

The Anointing at Bethany. 351

upon this occasion. He sits at a festive board.
He is surrounded by men looking joyously for-
ward to days and years of success and triumph
But he knows what they do not — that on that
day week his body will be lying in the new-
made sepulchre. And he accepts the anoint-
ing at Mary's hand as preparing his body for
the burial. He sits the invited guest of a man
who had been a leper, surrounded in that vil-
lage home by a few humble followers. With
serene eye he looks down into the future, and
abroad over the earth, and speaks of it as a
thing of certainty that this gospel — the gospel
of glad tidings of salvation in his name — was to
be preached throughout the whole world. If it
be true that Jesus thought and felt and spoke
and acted as the Evangelists represent him as
having done that night, I do not need to say
how vain the attempt to explain away his fore-
sight of the future, to reduce it to the dimen-
sions of the highest human wisdom sagaciously
anticipating what was afterwards to occur.

THE END.

THE

Passion Week.

CONTENTS.

FACE,

SUNDAY.
L— The Triumplial Entry into Jerusalem — Jesus

Weeping over the City, 1

MONDAY.

II. — The Fig- tree Withering Away— The Second

Cleansing of the Temple, 19

TUESDAY.
III. — The Barren Fig-tree — Parables of the Two

Sons and the Wicked Husbandmen 36

IV. — The Marriage of the King's Son — Question as

to the Tribute-money, 56

V. — Question of the Sadducees as to the Resurrec-
tion of the Dead, 77

VI. — The Lawyer's Question — The two Great Com-
mandments—Christ. David's Son and Da-
vid's Lord, 95

vi Contents.

PAGE

VII. — The Woes denounced upon the Pharisees, .... Ill

VIII. — The Widow's Mite — Certain Greeks desire to

see Jesus 126

IX.— The Prophecies of the Mount, 147

X.— The Prohecies of Mount, 1G0

XI.— The Parable of the Ten Virgins, 180

XII.— The Parable of the Talents, 199

XITL— The Day of Judgment, 221

XTV.— The Day of Judgment 238

THURSDAY.

XV.— The Washing of the Disciples' Feet, 255

XVI.— The Exposure of Judas 274

XVII. — The Lord's Supper 300

X VIII.— Gethsemane 320

THE PASSION WEEK.

I.

THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM — JESUS
WEEPING OVER THE CITY.*

THE road from Jericho to Jerusalem, as it
winds up the eastern slopes of Olivet,
passes close by the village of Bethany. From
the village a footpath runs up to the top of the
Mount, and thence down a steep declivity into
the ravine of the Kedron. This being the
shortest, may have been the path ordinarily
taken by the villagers when going on foot to
and from Jerusalem. It was not the way that
any rider, not the way that the caravans of-

* Matt. xxi. 1-11 ; Mark xi. 1-11 ; Luke xix. 29-44 ; John xii.
12-18.

2 Sunday of the Passion Week.

Passover pilgrims coming up from Jericho,
would choose. They naturally would take the
somewhat longer, but much better and more
level road, which runs round the southern
shoulder of the ridge as it shelves down toward
the Mount of Offence. The single circumstance
that, on the occasion now before us, Jesus rode
into the city, might of itself have led us to be-
lieve that it was by the latter road he went
Still further confirmation of this meets us as
we enter into the details of the short but ever
memorable procession.

The quiet day of Sabbatic rest at Bethany is
over. Released from its restraints, visitors may
now freely pass from Jerusalem to Bethany.
Of this freedom numbers avail themselves, and
the village is crowded. It is understood that at
some time in the course of the day — the first day
of the week — Jesus means to go into the city.
During the forenoon the tidings of this inten-
tion are widely circulated. It was now but
four days to the Passover, and the crowds of
pilgrims, requiring as they did a day or two of
preparation, have nearly all arrived. In and
about Jerusalem between two and three mil-
lions of people — more than a third of the
entire population of Judaea and Galilee — are

The Peocession into Jebusalem. 3

assembled.* The town itself is unable to afford
accommodation to all the strangers. The en-
virons all around are studded with booths and
tents. The side of Olivet that looks toward
the city, not the least favorite suburb, along
which the road from Jericho descends, is cov-
ered with these temporary erections. In the
afternoon Jesus leaves the village and joins the
companies coining up from the valley of the Jor-
dan. The road winds southward for a short dis-
tance out upon a ledge of the mountain, from the
top of which is caught a distant view of a part
of Mount Zion lying outside the walls, the great
city itself being concealed. At this point, im-
mediately before and beneath the traveller,
there is a deep hollow running up into and
dying out upon the hill-side, to avoid descend-
ing into which the road takes first a sudden
bend to the right, till it reaches nearly to the
top of the ravine, and then turns again to the
left, to traverse the opposite spur of the moun-
tain. Pausing for a moment at this spot,
Jesus sees ' over against ' him, across the hol-

, — £

* Josephus estimates the numbers present on a Passover occasion
at about three millions, httle short of half the population of the
two provinces. The number of lambs slain is stated to have been
256,500.

4= Sunday op the Passion Week.

low, the village of Bethphage.* Calling two
of his disciples he bids them go by the short
cut across the valley over to the village, and
bring an ass and a colt that they would find
there, and to have them ready upon the road
running near to Bethphage by the time that he
and the rest of the disciples have made the
round by the head of the hollow. f The dis-
ciples listen with wonder to these instructions.
It is but a short distance into the town — an
hour's walk, or less ; it cannot be through wea-
riness that Jesus wishes to have an ass to ride
upon. He had seldom if ever before used this
mode of travelling, one not having any special
dignity in our eyes, but one that highest digni-
taries in the East, kings and princes, prophets
and priests, might not unsuitably, upon the

* The description of the text is derived from a minute personal
examination of the localities. Upon the spot where in that descrip-
tion the village of Bethphage is represented as standing, tanks and
and foundations were perceived, the undoubted evidences of the
former existence of a village. The site is the same, I presume, as
the one assigned to the village by Dr. Barclay in the City of the
Great King. It full}7 and minutely answers, as I have endeavored
«o indicate, all the requirements of the narrative.

+ Al usual, the narrative of St. Mark is characterized by the
mention of minute particulars, such as the finding of the colt ' by
the door without, in a place where two ways met. ' St. Mark may
have received his information from St. Peter, who may have been
one of the two sent across the valley by Christ.

The Procession into Jerusalem. 5

most important occasions, make use of. Can
it be that the hour so long waited for has come?
Can it be that Jesus is about to throw off his
disguise, assume his regal rank and character,
and enter the capital as the King of the Jews ?
As they move on, groups of pilgrims coming
out from Jerusalem meet them by the way.
To them they tell the orders Christ has given
— tell the hopes that are rising in their hearts.
The excitement spreads and deepens. They
meet the asses by the way. It is the colt, the
one upon which no man yet had sat, that Jesus
chooses. They cast their garments on it, and
set him thereon. They hail him as their Mes-
siah, their King. He does now what he never
did before : he accepts the title, he receives the
homage. All is true, then, that they had been
thinking and hoping. It is openly and avow-
edly as Christ their King that he is about to
go into Jerusalem.

Then let all the honors that they can give
him be bestowed. It is but little of outward
pomp or splendor they can throw around this
regal procession. They cannot turn the nar-
row mountain-path into a broad and covered
roadway for their King, but they can strip off
their outer garments, and cast them as a car-

6 Sunday of the Passion Week.

pet beneath his feet. They can cut down leafy
branches from the olive-trees and strew them
in his way. Royal standards they have none
to carry, they have no emblazoned flags of vic-
tory to wave. No choice instruments of music
are here, through which practiced lips may
pour the swelling notes of joy and triumph, but
they can pluck the palm-tree branches (Na-
ture's own emblems of victory) and wave them
over his head, and they can raise their voices
in hosannas round him. He allows all this, re-
ceives it all as seemly and due. The spirit of
exultation and of triumph expands under the
liberty and sanction thus given. Swelling in
numbers, freer and more animated in its ex-
pressions, the procession moves on till the ridge
of the hill is gained, and the city begins to open
to the view. The mighty multitude breaks out
into acclamations of praise ; those going before
and those following after vie with one another,
and fill the air with their hosannas, — applying
to Jesus, and this entry into Jerusalem, pas-
sages that all understood to relate to the Mes-
siah. ' Hosanna to the Son of David ; blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ;
hosanna in the highest, blessed be the King,
and blessed be the kingdom of our father Da-

The Peocession into Jerusalem. 7

vid ; peace in heaven and glory in the highest/
Some Pharisees who are looking on and listen-
ing, press through the crowd, and speaking to
Jesus as one who must know and feel how mis-
placed and how perilous his public acceptance
of such homage as this must be, would have
him stop it. ' Master,' they say to him, 're-
buke thy disciples.' ' I tell you,' is his reply,
' that if these should hold their peace, the stones
would immediately cry out.'

Down the sloping path the procession moves.
A ledge of rock is reached, looking from which
across the valley of the Kedron the whole city
lies spread out before the Saviour's eye.* The
sight arrests him ; the procession stops. All
around is light and joy and triumph. But a
dark shadow falls upon the Saviour's counte-
nance. His eyes fill with tears. He beholds
the city, and he weeps over it. Another Jeru-
salem than the one sitting there at ease, clothed
in holiday attire, busied with her Passover pre-
parations, is before his eye, — a Jerusalem beset,
beleaguered, crouching in fear and terror,
doomed to a terrible destruction. How little
power has the present over the mind and heart

* See Dr. Stanley's Sinai and Palestine, p. 101.

8 Sunday of the Passion Week.

of Jesus ! What cares he for this adulation of
the multitude, this parade of praise ? Even
had it all been genuine, all the outburst of an
intelligent faith, an enthusiastic attachment to
him in his true character and office, it had not
checked the current of thought and feeling
within the Saviour's heart. But he knows how
hollow it all is, how soon it will all die away.
He thinks of the future ; but of what future ?
Why was it not the future of the next few days?
Why did the scenes that were then before him
not call up that future ? There before him lay
the garden of Gethsemane : there, across the
valley, outside the city walls, the hill of Cal-
vary ; there, in the midst of the lofty buildings
that crowned the heights of Zion and Moriah,
rose the dwellings of the high priest and the
palace of Herod ; and he who is now looking
upon these places knows well that before an-
other Sabbath dawns he would be lying in
agony in that garden, that beneath these roofs
he would be jeered at and spit upon, and mock
emblems of royalty forced upon him — the sen-
tence of condemnation ratified by the fiendish
cries of the city multitude : ' Away, away with
him ! crucify, crucify him !' and that there, up-
on the hill of Calvary, he would have to die the

The Procession into Jerusalem. 9

death of the cross. It had been no disparage-
ment to the humanity of Jesus had the sights
then before his eyes brought up before his
thoughts the sufferings and the death with
which so soon they were to be associated. But
there is a higher reach of self-forgetfulness here
than that of deadness or indifference to the ac-
clamation of the surrounding multitudes. Je-
sus puts aside the prospect of his own endur-
ances, though so near and so dark. He looks
over and beyond them. Without naming the
city, yet, by some glance of the eye or motion
of the hand making clear the reference of his
words as he stands weeping, he exclaims! 'If
thou hadst known, even thou,7 thou upon whom
for so many ages so much of the divine good-
ness has been lavished, whose gates the Lord
has loved more than all the dwellings of Jacob,
within whose holy Temple for so many genera-
tions the smoking altar and the bleeding sacri-
fice without, and the glimmering light of the
Shekinah within, have spoken of a God there
waiting to be gracious, — if thou, even thou,
with all thy crowded sins upon thee, thy stoning
of the prophets and casting forth of those that
were sent to thee, — if thou at least, at last, in
this thy day, when, all his other messengers

10 Sunday of the Passion Week.

rejected, the Father has sent forth his own Son
to thee, saying, Surely they will reverence my
Son, — if thou in thy day hadst known the
things belonging to thy peace spoken so often,
so earnestly by him.'

'If thou hadst but known.' The sentence is
cut short. For a moment the bright vision
rises of all that Jerusalem might have been had
she but known the time of her visitation. Had
she but owned and welcomed her Messiah when
he came, then might she have sat as a queen
among all the cities of the earth. And- he
whom she honored would have honored her so
as to cast all her former glory into the shade.
Then, without her hands being steeped in the
wickedness of the deed, or any hands of wick-
edness being employed to do it, some fit altar
might have been found or reared, and in sight
not of mocking enemies, but adoring friends,
might the great sacrifice have been offered up ;
and from Jerusalem, as from the centre of the
great Christian commonwealth, might the tid-
ings of the completed redemption have gone
forth, and unto her all the glory and the honor
of the nations might have been brought. All
bhis, and more, might have been in that bright
jision which for a moment rises before the Sa-

The Procession into Jerusalem. 11

viour's eye. Bat quickly the vision dissipates :
gives place to one, alas ! how different. ' Bat
now they are hid from thine eyes. For the
days will come that thine enemies shall cast a
trench about thee, and compass thee round,
and keep thee on every side, and shall lay thee
even with the ground, and thy children within
thee ; and they shall not leave in thee one
stone upon another, because thou knewest not
the time of thy visitation.'

The pause, the tears, the lament over the
doomed city, must have produced a deep im-
pression on those around. How little could
they understand the meaning of what Christ
said, or the source of the emotion he displayed.
One thing was clearly shown : the absence of
all anticipation on the part of Jesus of any
present individual success and triumph. There
was much in the manner of his reception, in
the plaudits with which he was hailed, in the
popular enthusiasm that had found for itself
such a vent, to have impelled a mere political
adventurer to take advantage of the occasion,
and put himself at the head of a great national
movement. How easy had it been for Jesus,
had he gone in with the false ideas and expec-
tations of the thousands then congregated in

12 Sunday or the Passion Week.

and about Jerusalem, to have got himself re-
cognized as their leader, and to have created a
commotion which there were no means at hand
to allay ! His thoughts are far otherwise oc-
cupied. A sublime compassion fills his spirit,
draws forth his tears, and prompts those pa-
thetic lamentations.

We are not told what effect the strange inter-
ruption of the triumphal march produced. It
must have done something to subdue the ardor,
to quiet the demonstrations of the crowd. The
procession, however, after the momentary pause,
moves on ; the hosannas abated, it may have
been, but still continued. They go down into
the valley, they cross the Kedron, they climb
the heights on which the cit}^ stood, they enter
into the nearest gate. The whole city is moved.
The great bulk of the town population look
askance upon this 'singular spectacle, far less
acquainted with and less interested in Jesus
than the strangers from the country.

'Who is this?' they say, as they see Jesus
in the centre of the excited multitude ; ' and
what can all this mean ?' They are told by
those taking part in the procession: 'This is
Jesus the prophet, of Nazareth of Galilee.'
How they received the intelligence we do not.

The Peocession into Jeeusalem. 13

know ; with something of wonder we may be-
lieve, and not a little of incredulity and dislike.
The movement, however, is too deep and too
extensive for any instant questioning of its
character or interruption of its progress. The
authorities, taken in all likelihood by surprise,
do not interfere. Jesus goes up into the Tem-
ple, looks round upon all things that he saw
there, and, the even-tide being now come.* he
turns, retraces his steps, and retires, we know
not how attended, to the quiet home at Beth-
any.

Upon the triumphal procession into the city,
especially upon the tears which Jesus shed and
the lamentation that he poured over Jerusalem,
let us offer one or two remarks.

1. How clear the proof here given of our
Lord's intimate foreknowledge of all that was
afterwards to occur ! Any one might have
ventured on a prediction, grounding it upon
what he knew of the existing relationships be-
tween the Roman power and the Jewish com-
munity, that a collision was imminent, that in
that collision the weaker party would be con-
quered, and Jerusalem should fall ; but who

* Mark xi. 11.

11 Sunday of the Passion Week.

save he to whom the future was as the present
could have spoken as Jesus did of the days
when the enemy should cast a trench, and raise
a mound, and compass it round, and keep it in
on every side ?

Josephus tells us how to the very letter all
this was fulfilled, — how at an early stage of the
four months' siege, Titus, the Bornan general
in command, summoned a council of war, at
which three plans were discussed : to storm the
city, or to repair and rebuild the engines that
had been destroyed, or to blockade the city and
starve it into surrender. The third was the
method adopted, and by incredible labor, the
whole army engaging in the work, a wall was
raised, which compassed the city round and
round, and hemmed it in on every side.

2. A fresh mysterious awe attaches to the
tears of Jesus shed thus beforehand over Jeru-
salem, as we think that they were shed by him
whose own hand inflicted the judgment over
which he lamented. In this aspect these tears
are typical, and have been rightly taken as
representative and expressive of the emotion
with which Christ contemplates the great spir-
itual catastrophe of the ruin of lost souls. It
might have been otherwise than it was with

The Tears shed oyer Jerusalem. 15

the doomed city. Had it been utterly impos-
sible for her to have averted that calamity, had
that impossibility been due, as it must have
been had it existed, to Christ's own ordinance,
there had been hypocrisy in his tears, in his
weeping over the calamity as if it had been a
curse drawn down by Jerusalem upon herself
by her own acts and deeds. But the alterna-
tive had been set before the city ; the things
belonging to her peace had been revealed ; she
might have known them ; it was her own fault
she did not ; had she known, the terrible fate
had not befallen her. So it is with every lost
spirit of our race. The things belonging to
our peace with God have been made clearly
known and openly set before us. They are
ours in offer ; if we will they may be ours in
possession. There is no outward hindrance,
no invincible obstacle whatever to our entering
into that peace, nothing but our own unwilling-
ness to be saved as Jesus desires to save us.
If any of us perish, over us the Saviour shall
weep as over those who have been the instru-
ments of their own ruin.

How impressively too are we here taught
that the day of grace, the opportunity of return
to and reconciliation with God, has its fixed

16 Sunday of the Passion Week.

limits, narrower often than the day of life.
Apparently Jerusalem's day of grace extended
for years be}Tond the time when he uttered the
words of doom, and let fall the tears of sympa-
thy. Miracles were wrought in her streets,
exhortations and remonstrances addressed to
her children, but to that all seeing-eye before
which the secret things of God's spiritual king-
dom lie open, the things belonging to her peace
were from that time hid from her eyes. The
door was shut, the doom was sealed. A like
event happened of old to Esau when he sold
his birthright. That was the point of doom in
his career, and having passed it he found no
place for repentance, for changing the divine
purpose regarding him, though he sought it
carefully with tears. A like event happened
to ancient Israel on her exodus from Egypt.
The time of trial as to whether an entrance
should be ministered into the land of promise
closed at her first approach to the borders of
Palestine ; closed when the Lord sware in his
wrath that she should not enter into that rest.
A. like event may happen in the moral and
spiritual history of any man. God's Spirit will
not always strive with ours. The time may
come when the awful words pass from the lips

The Tears Shed over Jerusalem. 17

of the righteous Judge, " Ephraim is joined to
his idols, let him alone ;" — and providence will
let the man alone ; and the Word of God will
let the man alone ; and his own conscience will
let the man alone ; and the Spirit of all grace
will let the man alone. It is not for us to
usurp the prerogative of the Omniscient. It is
not for us to affirm of any one, let his character
and conduct be what it may, that he has
reached or passed the mysterious point beyond
which that comes true. It is not for any one
to pass such sentence upon himself. But let
all of us stand upon our guard, and reflect that
if for months or years we have been growing
colder, deader, more indifferent to spiritual
things, to the unseen and eternal realities ; if
conscience has been gradually losing her hold
and weakening in her power ; if we can listen
now unmoved to what once would have im-
pressed and affected us ; if we court and dally
with temptations that once we would have
shunned ; if sins are lightly committed which
once we would have shrunk from ; by these,
and such like marks, it is apparent that our
day of grace has been declining, the shadows
of its evening have been lengthening out, and

18 Sunday of the Passion Week.

that, if no change occur, if this course of things
go on long, ere the sun of our natural ex-
istence go down, the sun of our spiritual day
may have set, never to rise again.

n.

THE FIG-TREE WITHERING AWAY — THE SECOND
CLEANSING OF THE TEMPLE.*

iHcmtiag.

SPEAKING generally of the days and nights
of the memorable week which preceded
his crucifixion, St. Luke tells us that Jesus ' in
the daytime was teaching in the temple, and at
night he went out and abode in the mount that
is called the Mount of Olives.'f The other
evangelists speak of his going out at even-tide
to Bethany, to lodge there. Some of the
nights may have been spent in the village home ;
some outside in the olive-gardens. If the night
which succeeded his triumphal entry into the

* Matt. xxi. 12-17 ; Mark xi. 12-19 ; Luke six. 45-48 : John xii
19.
t Luke xxi. 37.

20 The Baeeen Fig Teee.

city was spent in the latter way, it may have
been in solitude, in sleeplessness, in fasting, and
in prayer, that its silent watches passed. And
this would explain to us the circumstance, oth-
erwise obscure, that next morning as he re-
turned into the city Jesus was hungry. In thiv
condition, he saw at some distance before him
by the wayside, a fig-tree covered with leave?
It is the peculiar nature of this tree that ordi
narily its fruit appears before its leaves. Show-
ing, as it did, such profusion of leaf, the fig-tree
on which the eye of Jesus rested should have
had some fruit hanging on its branches. But
when he came up to it, it had none. Was
Christ then deceived and disappointed ? Did
he not know before he approached the tree
that no fruit would be found upon it ? If he
did know, should he have appeared to cherish
an expectation which he did not really enter-
tain ? In answer to these and many kindred
questions which may be raised regarding the
incident, it is enough to say that in his whole
dealing with the fig-tree by the wayside, Jesus
meant, not to speak, but to enact a parable.
In such acting, the letter may, and in many
instances must, be false, that the spirit and
meaning may be truly and fully exhibited.

The Barren Fig Tree. 21

Here is a tree which by its show of leaves gives
promise that it has fruit upon it. Nay, more,
here is a tree which steps out in advance of all
its fellows, — for the time of figs, the ordinary
season for that fruit ripening in the neighbor-
hood of Jerusalem, has not yet come ; here is
a tree which, by the very prematureness and
advanced condition of its foliage, tempts the
traveller to believe that he will find there the
first figs of the season. It is as an ordinary
traveller that Jesus approaches it, and when
he finds that it has by its barrenness not only
sinned against the laws of its species, and failed
to profit by the advantages it has enjoyed, but
in its early foliage made such a boastful and
deceitful show of precedence and superiority
above its neighbors, he seizes upon it as one of
the fittest emblems he can find of that land and
people so highly favored, for which the Great
Husbandman had done so much, which had set
itself out before all other lands and peoples,
and made so large yet so deceitful a profession
of allegiance to the Most High. In his treat-
ment of this tree, Jesus would symbolize and
shadow forth the doom that the making and
the falsifying of these professions has drawn
down upon Israel. It was in mercy that in

22 The Baeken Fig Teee.

dumb prophetic show he chose to represent this
doom in a calamity visited upon a senseless tree
rather than upon a human agent. He might
have taken one or more of the men of whom
this tree was but a type, and in some terrible
catastrophe inflicted upon them have prefig-
ured the fate of their countrymen. Or he
might, as he had done not long before, when
pointing to the heavy judgments impending
over Judea, have taken actual instances of hu-
man suffering, such as that of the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sac-
rifices, or of the eighteen upon whom the tower
in Siloam fell, and employed them as emblems
of the like destruction in reserve for the impen-
itent. Upon the very occasion now alluded to,
when the first hint or obscure prophecy was
given of the kind of ruin coming upon Judea,
he had spoken a parable in which he had used
a fig-tree as an emblem of Israel, — a fruitless
fig-tree, for which a period of respite had been
solicited and obtained, for which year after year
everything had been done, by digging about it
and dunging it, that skill and care could sug-
gest. That parable, however, had stopped at
a very critical point. The intercession had pre-
vailed. The barren fig-tree was to be allowed

The Baeeen Fig Teee. 23

to stand, another year of trial was to be given
to it.

"We may assume that all which the dresser
of the vineyard promised would be done ; but
the issue is not revealed. The curtain drops
as the fourth year begins. What happened at
its close is left uncertain. After all this care
and culture the barren fig-tree might remain
barren still, and the sentence, " Cut it down ;
why cumbereth it the ground ?" come to be
executed up.on it. Whether it was actually to
be so or not, the parable did not reveal. But
now this actual fig-tree of the wayside, found
so full of leaf though so empty of fruit, is taken,
even as the fig-tree of the parable, to repre-
sent impenitent Israel, and in his treatment of
it Jesus takes up, carries on, and completes the
parable, telling what it left untold. Looking
at Christ's act and deed in this light, as at once
symbolic and prophetic, as stretching in its sig-
nificance beyond ancient Israel, and embracing
an exhibition of the result of profession with-
out practice, show without substance in religion,
let us ask ourselves upon what ground was it
that our Lord's cursing of the tree was ground-
ed, and in what did that curse consist ?

The tree is condemned solely for its barren-

24 Monday of the Passion Week.

ness. It is not said of it that it showed a sick-
ly, dwarfed, or stunted growth. It may have
stood as fair and goodly a tree to look upon as
any fig-tree around Jerusalem, offering as invit-
ing an object to the traveller's eye, furnishing
in outspread branches and broad green leaves
as refreshing a shade. But whatever its other
qualities, either for use or for ornament, it
wanted this one, — it did not bear fruit. That
was its fatal defect, and for that one defect the
blighting words were spoken against it, and it
died. The tree had failed in its first and high-
est office. A fig-tree is created that it may
bear figs. That is its peculiar function in the
physical creation, and if it fail in performing
this function, it forfeits its place in that creation,
it incurs the penalty of removal, it may right-
eously be treated as a cumberer of the earth.
We men have been created that, by being,
doing, enduring what God requires us to be
and to do and to endure, we may bear some
fruit unto him, some fruit of that kind which
can be laid up in the eternal garner. That is
our allotted function in the spiritual creation,
and if it remain undischarged, then by us also
is our place in that creation forfeited. In our
natural barrenness and unfruitfulness towards

The Baeken Fig Tkee. 25

God a gracious Intercessor has been found ; by
him for us a period of respite has been obtained,
a period in which many a gracious ministry of
his providence and Spirit is operating upon us.
Long and sadly may we have failed in fulfill-
ing the great end of our creation, yet if wTe will
but yield ourselves to these kindly and gracious
influences that the Redeemer of our souls is so
ready to exert, the place that wre had forfeited
may still be ours, seasons of richer fruitfulness
may be before us on earth, and a long summer-
tide of endless joy beyond. But if we fail, if
we resist these influences, if we still remain
barren before God, it will avail us little that
we plead the harmlessness of our lives, the gen-
tleness, the goodness, the generosity of our dis
positions and conduct toward our fellow-men
Like the barren fig-tree of the wayside we
stand, with much, it may be, of beauty, much
of outward show, many an amiable quality in
us to win human love, not without use either,
contributing largely to the happiness of others,
but barren towards God, fruitless in the eye of
Christ, open to the doom that we may force
him to pronounce and execute.

And what is that doom, as shadowed forth
in the symbolic incident that we have now be-

23 Monday or the Passion Week.

fore us ? Jesus does nothing to the barren fig-
tree. No outward ministry of wrath is here
employed ; no axe is laid at the root of the
tree ; no whirlwind blast from the wilderness
strips it of its leaves ; no lightning-stroke from
heaven is commissioned to split its solid trunk,
and scorch and wither up its fruitless branches.
The doom pronounced is simply this : ' Let no
man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever.' The
curse laid upon it was that of perpetual barren-
ness. For the execution of that curse it was
not necessary that any kind of violence should
be done to it ; but it was physically necessary
that all those material agencies needed to
make it a fruit-bearing tree, which had so long
and so unavailingly been operating, should now
cease to act. This actually takes place. The
sentence passes from the lips of Jesus : ' Let
no fruit grow on thee henceforward forever.'
His ministering servants hear and hasten to
carry the sentence into execution. The earth
hears and yields no more nourishment to those
roots ; light and air, they hear and withhold
from them their genial influences ; the rain
may fall, the dew may settle upon those
branches, but not to recruit or re-invigorate.
It had not profited by them as it should, and

The Baeeen Fig Teee. 27

now there is taken away from it even that
which it had. Poor, solitary, forsaken tree, cut
off by that fiat of Ileaven from all the supports
of life and growth ! See how from that mo-
ment the glossy green of the spring leaves
grows dull ; the branches begin to droop ; the
bark to crack ; the whole tree to shrink and
shrivel up, till next morning the passers-by see
it dried up from the very roots !

And should the great Creator desire to deal
with any barren human spirit as he dealt with
that barren fig-tree, what has he to do in order
to punish it for its barrenness ? He does not
need to come forth out of his place to avenge
the injury clone to his great name. He does
not need to grasp any instrument of vengeance,
or inflict with it a single stroke ; no bolt of
wrath need be hurled from above, nor any hell
from beneath be moved to draw the guilty
spirit down into its eddying fires. No ; all
that God has to do is simply to pass the same
doom executed upon the fig-tree. He has but
to desert that spirit, to say, ' Arise, let us go
hence,' and call away after him as he goes all
those powers and influences that had been at
work there so lcng and so fruitlessly, to leave
it absolutely and wholly > finally and forever, to

28 Monday or the Passion "Week.

itself. Poor, solitary, forsaken spirit, cut off
from God, and cast adrift upon a wild and
shoreless sea, with thine own vulture passions
in thee, let loose from all restraint, to turn
upon thee and torture thee, and prey upon
thee forever ! What darker, drearier hell than
that? — The soul breeding within it the worm
that never dies ; itself kindling the fire it can-
not quench.

The sentence against the fig-tree pronounced,
the elements having got from their Creator the
commission to execute it, which they were not
slow to do, Jesus passes on into the city and
up into the Temple. He had on the preceding
evening merely looked around on all that was
to be seen. It was the clay (the tenth of the
month Nisan) on which, according to the old
command, the Jews were solemnly to set apart
the paschal lamb for the coming sacrifice. And
Christ's object may then have simply been to
present himself as the true Lamb of Gocl, set
apart from the beginning, who four days there-
after was to offer up himself in the sacrifice of
the cross. At the time of that short evening
visit all may have been comparatively quiet
within the Temple. But now, as at an early
hour he enters the court of the Gentiles, the

The Cleansing of the Temple. 29

same sights are before him that met his eyes
and stirred his spirit three years before : the
bustle of a great traffic, of buyers and sellers,
and money-changers, all busily engaged. In
reproof of such desecration, in assertion of his
divine dignity and power as the Son coming to
his Father's house, with full authority to dis-
pose of all things there as he pleased, he had
at the beginning of his ministry cleansed the
Temple, cast out the traffickers, overturned the
tables of the money-changers — with little or no
effect as it would seem, for now all the abuses
are restored. The hand of the cleanser is as
much needed as ever, and it is once more put
forth as vigorously, perhaps more so, than be-
fore, for we detect increase of sternness both in
word and deed on this occasion. But why the
repetition of the act? Why begin and close
the ministry in Jerusalem with such cleansing
of the Temple ? Though we could give no
other answer to such a question, we should be
satisfied with regarding this as one of the many
instances in which Jesus repeated himself as he
did both in speech and in action. He knew
the nature on which he desired to operate. He
knew how difficult it is to fix even the simplest
ideas, not connected with the outward world of

30 Monday of the Passion Week.

sense and action, in the minds and hearts of
the great mass of mankind. He knew that
however good the instruments might be that
are used to do this (and he chose the simplest
and the best,) to make the impression deep
and lasting the stroke must be oft repeated •
the same truth told in the same words, or illus-
trated by the same emblems, or symbolized by
the same acts. In the Gospels of St. Matthew
and St. Mark more than a dozen instances oc-
cur of the same discourses re-delivered with
scarcely any variation in the phraseology ; and
we may warrantably conclude that this hap-
pened far more frequently in the actual minis-
try of Jesus than now appears upon the face of
the record. It was the same with the miracles
'as with the teachings of our Saviour. Twice
he fed many thousands on the hill-side, and
twice within the lake miraculous draughts of
fishes were taken. It was in harmony with
the method thus so often followed, that at the
commencement and at the close of his labors
m Judea, within the courts of the Temple, in
presence of the priests and the rulers, he assert-
ed by a bold and authoritative act his pro-
phetic and Messianic character, his true and
proper Sonship to the Father. In the latter

The Cleansing of the Temple. 31

case we can see a peculiar propriety in his hav-
ing done so. The clay before, he had made
his appeal to the people. In language bor-
rowed from ancient prophecy, and known by
all to apply to Christ their coming king, they
had hailed him as their Messiah, and in his ac-
ceptance of their homage he had publicly ap-
propriated to himself the Messianic office. It
remained that he should make a like appeal
to the priesthood, calling on them to recognize
him as holding that high office. He did so the
next day in the Temple. It was the first thing
he did on entering the holy place. This was
the way in which he began that brief ministry
within its courts, in which his earthly labors
were to close. He knew beforehand how fruit-
less it would be ; but nevertheless the sign and
token of who it was that was amongst them
must be given.

The second cleansing of the courts of the
Temple appears to have taken the custodiers
of the holy place as much by surprise as did
the first. They made no attempt to interrupt
it, nor did they interfere with Jesus, in the use
to which he turned the courts that he had
cleansed. For he did not retire after the
purification was accomplished. He remained

32 Monday of the Passion Week.

to keep guard over the place from which the
defilement had been removed, not suffering
any man to carry even a common vessel across
the court, which the Jews had turned into a
common city thoroughfare. He remained for
hours to occupy it unchallenged ; the people
flocked into it, and he taught them there.
They were all, we are told, very attentive to
hear him, and they were astonished at his doc-
trine— the citizens who had never heard him
teach so before, and the Galileans, to whom,
the doctrine, indeed, was not new, but who
wondered afresh to hear it spoken under the
shadow of the holy place. And the teaching
had its usual accompaniment : " The blind and
the lame came to him in the Temple, and he
healed them " there.* He had wrought many
miracles before in Jerusalem, but never here
or never thus ; never within the walls of the
sanctuary ; never in such a public and solemn
manner, as direct attestations of his asserted
kingly dignity and power. For hours he had
the large outer court of the Gentiles at his
command, and this was the manner in which
the time and the place were employed, What a

* Matt xxi. 14.

The Cleansing of the Temple. 33

change from the morning to the forenoon occu-
pation— from the crowding and the jostling,
and the bargaining, and the driving to and fro
of cattle, to the silent multitude hanging upon
the lips of the great Speaker, or watching as
one and another of the lame and the blind is
brought to him to be healed ! But where all
this while are the priests and the Levites, the
rulers and the Temple guard ? They are look-
ing on bewildered, their earlier antipathy kin-
dled into a tenfold fervor of hate. The closer

.-V .
to them he comes, the more distinctly and

forcibly he presses upon them the evidences of
his Messiahship, it convinces them the more
what a dangerous man he is, how utterly im-
possible it is that he can be any longer toler-
ated or suffered to act in such a bold, pre-
sumptuous, defiant style — the resolution they
had already formed to destroy him taking firm-
er hold of them than ever. For the moment,
however, they fear both him and the people :*
his conduct in braving them within their own
stronghold so unlike anything that they lad
ever fancied he would dare to do ; the current
of popular feeling running strongly in his fa-

* Mark xi. 18 , Luke xix. 48.

34 Monday of the Passion "Week.

vor. Not that there was much outward dem-
onstration of this feeling. It had expended it-
self the day before in the triumphal procession
without the city gates, where all felt more at
liberty.

Within the area of the Temple, and under
those searching, frowning looks of the scribes
and the chief priests, the breath of the people
is abated. Thinking of the strange tears and
lamentations over the capital, of all they see
and hear within the Temple, something of
doubt and uncertainty, of awe and fear, has
been stealing over the spirits of the ignorant
multitude, which restrains them from any
marked or vehement expressions of attachment.
But there are little children among them who
had taken part in yesterday's procession, within
whose ears its hosannas are still ringing.
These feel no such restraint, and in the joyous
ardor of the hour and scene, they lift up their
voices and fill the courts of the Temple with
the cry, 'Hosanna to the Son of David.' This
is more than the chief priests and scribes can
bear. In their displeasure they appeal to
Christ himself, saying, 'Hearest thou what
they say ? wishing him, as their allies had
done the day before, to stop praises, in their

The Cleansing of the Temple. 35

ears so profane, so blasphemous. All the
answer that they get is a sentence applicable
to all praise that comes from the lips of child-
hood, cited from a psalm which is throughout a
prophecy of himself, a proclamation of the ex-
cellency of his name and kingdom over all the
earth : ' Have ye never read, Out of the mouths
of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected
praise V Pleasant ever to the eye of Jesus
was childhood, with its charm of freshness,
simplicity, buoyant freedom, and open, ardent
love and trust, and sweet ever to his ear the
strains of juvenile devotion, but never so
pleasant as when he saw these bands of chil-
dren clustering round him in the Temple ;
never so sweet as when — no others left to do it
— they lifted up their youthful voices in those
hosannas, the last accents of earthly praise that
fell upon his ear.

At the rebuke and the quotation, the baffled
scribes and high priests retire, to do no more
that day in the way of interruption ; retire to
mature their plans, to wait for the morrow,
and see what it will bring forth. So closed
the last day but one of the active ministry of
Jesus.

III.

THE BARREN FIG-TREE — PARABLES OF THE TWO
SONS AND OF THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN.*

£ursiicuj.

IT was early on the morning of Monday, the
second day of the Passion week, that Jesus
pronounced the doom upon the fig-tree. The
sentence took immediate effect : ' Presently the
fig-tree withered away/f The withering, how-
ever, was not so instantaneous and complete as
to attract at the moment the attention of the
disciples, or the shades of evening may have
wrapped the tree from their sight as they went
out to the Mount of Olives. Next morning,
however, returning into the city by the same
path they had taken the day before, they
came to the tree, looked at it, and saw that it
was ' dried up from the roots. 'J Jesus him-

* Mark xi. 20-33 ; xii. 1-12 ; Matt. xxi. 23-46 ; Luke xx. 1-19.
t Matt. xxi. 19. J Mark xi. 20

The Barken Fig Tree. 37

self seems scarcely to notice it, is about to
pass it by. The ready spokesman, Peter, calls
his attention to it, and says ' Master, behold,
the fig-tree which thou cursedst is withered
away.' It is simple wonder, and nothing
more, wonder at the power by which such
an effect had been accomplished ; which breaks
out in this expression of the apostle. And
he is the faithful representative of the state
of feeling in the breasts of his brethren.
They manifest no curiosity, at least make no
inquiry as to the spiritual meaning of the inci-
dent. Their thoughts are engrossed with the
singularity of the occurrence, that by a simple
word spoken, without any external agency em-
ployed, so large a tree, in full leaf, should,
within twenty-four hours, have shrunk up from
its very roots, and should now stand before
them a leafless, shrivelled, lifeless thing. Had
they been in a different frame of mind, had
they been wondering, not how, but why so
strange a thing was done, Jesus might have
spoken to them otherwise than he did. As it
was, he graciously accommodates himself to the
existing condition of their thoughts, by letting
them know that his word had been a word of
power, because a word of strong undoubting

SS TOESDAY OF THE PASSION "WEEK.

faith, such faith as they themselves might
cherish. ' And Jesus, answering, saith unto
them, Have faith in God. For verily I say
unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast
into the sea ; and shall not doubt in his heart,
but shall believe ; it shall be clone.' In the
early days of Christianity, the faith of the apos-
tles was authorized and encouraged to take
hold of the omnipotence of the Deity, and
through it to work miracles. This kind of
faith, in its absolute and perfect form, existed
only in our Lord himself. To the power itself
by which the miracles were to be wrought
there was absolutely no limit, as there was
none to that omnipotence which the faith was
to appropriate and employ. But in actual ex-
ercise the power was to be proportioned to the
faith. It was to be according to their faith
that it was to be done by them, as well as in
them. We accept it then as true to its whole
extent, that at that time, and as to these men,
there was no miracle of power needful or use-
ful for the furtherance of their apostolic work,
which their faith, had it been perfect, might
not have enabled them to accomplish. Of
course we understand that that would not have

The Power op Faith and Peayee. 39

been a true or intelligent faith in God which
desired simply to make trial of its strength, in-
dependently of the purpose for which the power
was exercised. We put aside, therefore, as
quite frivolous and out of place, such a ques-
tion as this : Could St. Peter or St. Paul, when
their faith was strongest, have cast a mountain
into the sea, or plucked up a sycamore-tree by
the roots

Whatever God saw was meet to be done,
the power to do that was given ; and so to the
very shadow of the one, and to part of the
dress of the other, a wonderful efficacy was
once attached. But they and all these early
Christians were to know that the gift of work-
ing wonders, which sat for a season like a
crown of glory upon the brow of the infant
Church, was not' to be idly and indiscriminately
employed, and was ever to be reckoned as of
inferior value in God's sight to those inward
graces of the soul, in which true likeness to
and fellowship with God consists. Thus it is
that from speaking of faith as putting itself
forth in the wrorking of miracles, Jesus pro-
ceeds to speak of it as expressing the desires
of the heart to God in prayer : ° Therefore
I say unto you, What things soever ye desire

40 Tuesday or the Passion Week.

when ye pray, believe that ye receive them,
and ye shall have them." " And when ye
stand praying, forgive, if ye have aught against
any ; that your Father also which is in heaven
may forgive you your trespasses. But if ye
do not forgive, neither will your Father which
is in heaven forgive your trespasses." The last
words are the same that he had used in the
Sermon on the Mount. Comparing the two
cases, however, there is something more strik-
ing in the parallel than the simple repetition
of the same words. It was after his having
spoken for the first time the prayer that goes
by his name, that at the close — as if the one
petition, "Forgive us our debts, as we for-
give our debtors," had been dwelling upon his
mind, and he desired to recur to it, in order to
press home upon the heart the duty of forgiv-
ing others — that before passing on to another
subject of his discourse, he said : For if ye for-
give men their trespasses, your heavenly Fa-
ther will also forgive you : but if ye forgive
not men their trespasses, neither will your Fa-
ther forgive your trespasses."* So is it here.
He cannot speak of the large and limitless in-

* Matt. Ti. 14, 15.

The Prayer for Forgiveness. 41

flucnce of prayer without recurring to the
same idea, expressing and enforcing it in the
same words. Why have the two — our forgiv-
ing others, and being ourselves forgiven — been
linked thus together in such close and singular
conjunction ? Not that there is any other
ground of the divine forgiveness than the free
mercy of our God in Christ ; not that by par-
doning others we purchase the pardon of the
Heavens ; but that the connexion between the
two is so constant, fixed, invariable, that nei-
ther can you ever find the humble, broken,
contrite heart, which sues for mercy at the
throne of grace, without finding there also the
meek and gentle spirit that goes forth forgiv-
ingly towards others ; nor do you ever meet
with such free, full, generous forgiveness of
others, as from those who have themselves
partaken of the pardoning grace of God. He
who has been forgiven that great debt, the ten
thousand talents, how can he refuse to forgive
the hundred pence ?

The words about forgiveness were spoken in
presence of the withered fig-tree. The same
mysterious power, which had in this one instance
been put forth to blast and to destroy, was to be
conveyed to the disciples. May it not in part

42 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

have been to warn them that it was in no wrath-
ful spirit, for no malignant or destructive pur-
poses, that it was to be wielded by them, — that
in such emphatic terms they were reminded
that it must ever be in a meek forgiving spirit
that they should sue for the aids of the hea-
venly power ?

The short conversation by the wayside over
the walk into the city is resumed, and the Tem-
ple courts are reached, already filled, though it
was yet early, with eager expectant crowds.
Before beginning his work of teaching and of
healing, Jesus is walking leisurely through the
courts, calmly surveying all around, looking,
perhaps, to see what effect his act of the pre-
ceding day has had in the way of removing the
profanations of the place.

The Sanhedrim has met, a consultation has
been held, it has been resolved that as a pre-
liminary step he shall be challenged, and forced
to produce and authenticate his credentials.

' As he was walking in the Temple, there came
to him the chief priests and the scribes and the
elders,' — the three great bodies out of whom
the highest council of the Jews was constituted.
It is a formal deputation, in all likelihood, from
this council, which now approaches and accosts

The Challenge. 43

him. Their question seems a fit and fair one.
They are the constituted keepers of the Temple,
of the only public building of the city that the
Romans have left entirely under Jewish control.
There has been a manifest invasion of the terri-
tory committed to their guardianship, of the
offices that they alone are held competent to
discharge ; for who is this that, being neither
jpriest nor Levite, nor scribe nor elder, deals
with the sacred place as if it were his own ?
Nothing at first sight more proper or pertinent
than that they should come to one acting in
such a way as Jesus had done the day before,
and say to him, 'By what authority doest thou
these things, and who gave thee this authority?'
We remember, however, that three years be-
fore Jesus had acted in the same way within
the precintcs of the Temple, and that the same
men had then accosted him in the same man-
ner. Their question then indeed had been
somewhat different from what it is now :
' What sign showest thou, seeing thou doest these
things ?' Since then, sign after sign had been
given, miracle after miracle had been wrought,
proof after proof of his Messiahship had been
presented. They had refused to listen and be
convinced ; had turned all the multiplied evi-

44 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

dence aside, and dealt with it as if it were of
no weight. And now, at the close of a period
teeming throughout with answers to their first
challenge, they address him as if, for the first
time, the question as to what and who he was,
had to be raised. They do not, indeed, now
ask for signs ; they must have other vouchers.
They must probe to the bottom the pretensions
of this bold invader of their Temple, and draw
out from him what they fondly hope will give
them sufficient ground legally to condemn.
They frame their queries well. They first ask
about the authority under which he acts. They
know that no authority but one, that of God
himself, could sanction the procedure of the
Galilean. He may plead that authority • but
his own bare claiming it will not suffice, — he
must display his title to the possession of this
authority, must tell who gave it him. Looking
at the motives by which they were actuated,
and the sinister objects they had in view — con-
sidering, too, how full and varied were the ma-
terials already in their hands for answering
their inquiry, — Jesus might have kept silence
and refused to answer. He does not do this :
he gives indeed no direct or categorical reply ;
but it would be wrong to say that he cleverly

The Eeply. 45

or artfully evades the question they put to him
by asking them another upon a quite different
subject ; that he suspends his reply to them on
theirs to his, so that, out of their refusal to an-
swer, he may construct a defence of his own
silence.

It was not as a mere evasion of a captious
challenge, as a mere method of stopping the
mouths of the challengers, that 'Jesus an-
swered and said unto them, I will ask you one
question, and answer me, and I will tell you
by what authority I do these things : The bap-
tism of John, was it from heaven or of men ?
answer me.' Jesus refers to the baptism of
John as containing within itself a sufficient
reply to their inquiries. If they acknowledged
it as divine, they must also recognize his au-
thority as divine ; for John had openly and re-
peatedly pointed to him as the Messiah, the
greater than he, whose shoe-latchet he was not
worthy to unloose. First, then, he must have
from them a confession as to the true character
of the Baptist's ministry. This they are un-
prepared to give. Though really and in their
hearts rejecting it, they had never openly dis-
credited John's claim to be a prophet sent by
God. They had managed to keep the people

46 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

in ignorance of what they thought. They had
not needed fo interfere to check the career of
the Baptist. Herod had done their work for
them in this case. John had been removed,
and they were willing enough it should be
thought that they participated in the popular
belief. They felt at once the difficulty of the
dilemma in which the question of Jesus in-
volved them. Should they say, as was nat-
urally to be expected they should, that John's
baptism was from heaven, Jesus would have it
in his power to say, .' Why then did ye not be-
lieve him when he testified of me ? If he was
from heaven then so am I, my ministry and his
being so wrapped together, that together they
stand or together they fall.' Such was the in-
stant use to which Jesus could turn a present
acknowledgment on their part of the divine
origin and authority of the Baptist's ministry,
convicting them at once of the plainest and
grossest inconsistency. They were not pre-
pared to stand convicted of this in presence of
the people, now stirred to intense anxiety as
they watched the progress of this collision.
But as little were they prepared to face the
storm that they would raise by an open denial
of the heavenly origin of the Baptist's mission ;

The Eeply. 47

and so to Christ's pointed interrogation, their
only answer, after reasoning among themselves,
is, ' We cannot tell.' It was false ; they could
at least have told what they themselves believed.
They could, but dared not ; and so by this
piece of cowardice and hypocrisy they forfeit
the title to have any other or fuller satisfaction
given them as to the nature and origin of that
authority which Jesus exercised, beyond that
which was already in their hands. ' And Jesus
answering said unto them, Neither do I tell
you by what authority I do these things.'*

Scarcely prepared for having the tables
turned so quickly and thoroughly upon them,
the scribes and chief priests and elders stand
crest-fallen before the Lord. He has them now
in hand, nor will he lose the last opportunity of
telling them what they are, and what he knows
they have resolved to do. About to pronounce
over them his fearful anathemas, when all the
word-battles of this troubled day are over, he
will force them now beforehand to spread out
with their own hands the grounds upon which
those anathemas were to rest. Out of their
own mouths will he condemn them. This is

* Mark xi. 33.

43 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

done by a skillful use of parable ; the same
kind of use that Nathan made of it when he
got David to judge and condemn his own con-
duct. ' But what think ye ?' says Jesus to
them, as if he were introducing a wholly new
topic : ' A certain man had two sons ; and he
came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day
in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will
not ; but afterward he repented, and went.
He came to the second, and said likewise ; and
he answered and said, I go, sir ; but went not.
Which of these two did the will of his father ?'
Little suspecting the real drift of this short and
simple story, and rather relieved than otherwise
by the question, as getting them out of their
embarrassment and covering their fall, they say
unto him at once, ' The first ; the one who said
he would not, yet who went.' Then came the
moral and application of the tale ; ' Verily I say
unto you, That the publicans and the harlots
go into the kingdom of God before you. For
John came unto you in the way of righteous-
ness, and ye believed him not ; but the publi-
cans and the harlots believed him ; and ye,
when ye had seen it, repented not afterward,
that ye might believe him.' It was the treat-
ment given to John and to his ministry that

Parable of the Two Sons. 49

Jesus had been setting forth in the conduct of
the two sons to their father. They, the chief
priests and elders of the people, were the sec-
ond son ; and those publicans and harlots, who
repented at the preaching of the Baptist, were
the first. It was bad enough to have the veil
of hypocrisy behind which they had tried to
screen themselves torn aside ; to have their un-
belief in the Baptist proclaimed upon the house-
tops. It was worse to have publicans and
harlots preferred before them, the preference
grounded upon their own verdict. But they
have still more to hear, still more to bear.
Jesus had been comparing them, to their great
chagrin, with some of the lowest of their own
times. His eye now takes a wider range. He
looks back to the treatment which these men's
forefathers had given to messenger after mes-
senger of the Most High, and he looks forward
to that which they, fit sons of such sires, were
about to give himself; and bringing the past,
the present, and the future into the picture, he
tells of a vineyard well fenced, well furnished,
let out to husbandmen ; of servant after servant
sent to receive its fruits ; of one of them being
beaten, another stoned, another killed, till the
owner of the vineyard having ' one son, his

50 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

well beloved,' at last sends him, saying, ' They
will reverence my son.' But the wicked hus-
bandmen, when he comes, take and kill him,
and cast him out of the vineyard. What
then,' says Jesus, 'shall the lord of the vine-
yard, when he cometh, do unto those husband-
men ?' This question is addressed to the peo-
ple, and not to the chief priests and scribes, to
whom, as St. Luke* tells us, the parable was
spoken ; and they, not looking perhaps beyond
the simple incidents of the tale, say, ' He will
come and destroy the husbandmen, and will
give the vineyard to others.' But why are the
chief priests and the elders forced, as unwill-
ingly they are, to remain standing there in
Christ's presence with a great crowd around
them ? what are they thinking of this second
story ? what will they now say ? Scarcely has
Christ begun to speak of the vineyard and its
fence, and its wine-press, ere Isaiah's vineyard
— type, they knew, of the house of Israel —
recurs to their memory ; and as messenger
after messenger is spoken of as despatched,
what could those be but the prophets whom
the Lord had sent unto their forefathers ? Al-

* Luke xx. 9.

Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. 51

ready a strong suspicion that this tale also is
to be brought to bear against them has entered
into, their minds — a suspicion that is turned
into a certainty as Christ proceeds to speak of
the owner of the vineyard as a father having
an only and well-beloved son, just such a son
as Jesus had always claimed to be to God, and
as he went on to represent the seizure and the
death of that son, — the very deed that they al-
ready had resolved to do. In these husband-
men they see themselves ; in their doom, what-
ever it may be, they see their own.

Whilst the people, then, in ready answer to
Christ's question, speak out the natural verdict
of the unbiased conscience, and say, ' He will
destroy the husbandmen, and give the vine-
yard unto others,' they, as they hear such a
heavy sentence passed, almost involuntarily ex-
claim, ' God forbid.' Jesus looks at them as
they utter this vehement disclaimer, and says :
1 What is this then that is written ? Did ye
never read in the Scriptures, The stone which
the builders rejected, the same is beeome the
head of the corner ? This is the Lord's doing,
and it is marvellous in our eyes ? Christ quotes
here from the 118th Psalm, a psalm familiar to
the Jews as pointing throughout to their Mes-

52 Tuesday op the Passion "Week.

siah ; so familiar, that it was from it that those
salutations were taken by which Christ on his
entry into the city had been hailed by the com-
mon people two clays before, as well as those
hosaunas to the son of David which the children
had repeated the next day in the Temple, the
echoes of which must still have been ringing
somewhat unpleasantly in the ears of the chief
priests and the rulers. Jesus wishes by this
quotation to carry on as it were the prophecy
of the parable ; to show what would be the
doom inflicted upon the perpetrators of that
dark deed, the murder of the Father's only and
well-beloved Son. That Son was to be himself
the inflicter of this doom ; but as he in the par-
able was dead, and could not be represented as
a living agent, the image of the vineyard is
dropped, and another is introduced, fitting in
however with the other, — the rejecters of the
stone being the same with the husbandmen of
the vineyard. The chief priests might have
some little difficulty in seeing how it was that
in speaking about the corner-stone Jesus was
but carrying on the same history a step or
two beyond the point at which the parable,
by the necessity of its structure, had stopped.
Any such difficulty was at once removed by

a he Corner Stone. 53

Christ's dropping for a moment all allegory,
all imagery : ' Therefore I say unto you, The
kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and
given to a nation bringing forth the fruits there-
of.'* They can mistake no longer ; the king-
dom is to be taken from them ; as the occupants
of the vineyard, they are to be ejected. But is
this all ? does this exhaust their doom ? What
about that doom may this new image of the
stone convey ? ' Whosoever shall fall on this
stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it
shall fall it will grind him to powder.' First
the stone is passive, suffering all kinds of rough
usage to be heaped upon it, revenging itself the
while for all the insults offered by causing those
who offer them to stumble over it, and fall and
be broken. But at last, as if invested with
some inner living power, or as if lifted and
wielded by some invisible but all-powerful hand,
it becomes active, gets into motion, lifts itself
up, and with a crushing weight descends upon
its despisers and grinds them to powder. Such
was Christ to that commonwealth of the Jews,
to that proud theocracy of which the men be-
fore him were the head. By the Great Archi-

* Matt. xxi. 43.

54 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

tect he had been laid of old in Zion, the chief
foundation of the great spiritual edifice to be
reared out of the ruins of the Fall. For many
a generation he had been a stone of stumbling
and a rock of offence. All these wrongs of the
past he passively had borne, and now in his
own person he is to submit to reproach and
suffering and death ; but the hour that was to
see him exalted because of this, and proclaimed
to be the head of the corner, was to see him
coming also in judgment. He was to arise out
of his place ; he was to pour contempt on his
despisers ; utter desolation was to come upon
the city and people of the Jews. The stone
was to fall upon it, and it was in truth a very
grinding of that land to powder, when every
vestige of its ancient institutions was swept
away, its people perished in multitudes, and
the remnant, scattered over all the earth, was
as the dust which the wind drives to and fro.

What Jesus was to the Jews, he is in a cer-
tain sense to all. Primarily and mainly, he is
set before us as the one and only true and
broad and firm foundation on which to build
our hopes ; a foundation open and easy of ac-
cess, no guarding fence around it, so near that
a single step is all that is needed to plant us on

The Corner Stone. 55

it, broad enougn for all to stand upon, and firm
enough to sustain the weight of the whole
world's dependence. Such is Christ to all who
go to him in humility, in simplicity, in child-
like trust, resting upon him and upon him only
for their forgiveness and acceptance with God.
But such he may not be, he is not, to all. The
very stone, so elect and precious to some, to
others may be a stone of stumbling and a rock
of offence. There before us all, in the broad
highway of life, it lies. It will bear now un-
moved and unprovoked any treatment that you
may give. But it shall not remain so for ever ;
and woe to him who, having despised and re-
jected it all through life, shall see it darkening
above his head, descending to crush. It were
better for that man that he had never been
born!

IT.

THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON — QUESTION
AS TO THE TRIBUTE-MONEY.*

AYINGr repelled the challenge to state
and to produce the authority upon which
he was acting, Jesus had addressed first to the
challengers the parable of the two sons, and
then to the people the parable of the wicked
husbandmen. In both of these parables the
conduct of his rejecters had been exposed, and
the fate in store for them foretold. Yet
another parable was added, intended to com-
plete that picture of the future which Jesus
would hold up before their eyes. This parable,
the last addressed by our Lord to the people at
large, was partly a repetition, partly an expan-
sion of the one delivered some time before in
Peraea, on the occasion of an entertainment

* Matt. xxii. 1-22 ; Mark xii. 13-17 ; Luke xs. 20-2G.

The Haeriage oe the King's Son. 57

given to Christ by a chief Pharisee, and which
is recorded in the 14th chapter of the Gospel
of St. Luke. It is interesting to notice the dif-
ference between the two, corresponding so
accurately, as they do, with the differences of
time and circumstances under which they were
spoken. When the first was uttered, the hos*
tility of the hierarchy, though deep and deadly,
was latent. The certain man, therefore, who
makes a supper, and sends out his servant to
tell them that were bidden to come, for all
things were now ready, has nothing more to
complain of than that his messenger and his
message were both treated with neglect. With
more or less courteousness, more or less deci-
sion of purpose, more or less implied preference
for other engagements, the invitation was re-
fused. And the penalty visited upon this re-
fusal was simply exclusion from the banquet.
" For I say unto you that none of those men
which were bidden shall taste of my supper "

In the second parable, the guilt of the first
invited guests is greater, the penalty more
severe. The certain man who makes a feast
becomes a king, invitations issuing from whom
had all the character of commands. And it is
for no common purpose that the royal banquet

58 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

is prepared. ' It is for a great state occasion ;
to celebrate a great state event. Even there-
fore had the king's invitations met with no
other or different reception from that given to
the invitation of the house-holder, a much
higher guilt had been involved in declining it ;
for a royal banquet made under such circum-
stances had something in it of a public or politi-
cal character. To make light of an invitation
to such a banquet, to plead any of the events
or duties or engagements of ordinary life as a
reason for declinature and absence, would not
only be in the highest degree discourteous, it
would have a taint of treason in it, an element
of disloyalty and rebellion.

In the one case a single servant is sent forth,
and when he tells the bidden guests to come,
for all things are now ready, with one consent
they begin to make excuse ; but there is noth-
ing of contempt or malignity displayed towards
either the provider of the feast or the servant
who bears the summons. There is an appar-
ent desire to make out something like a good
excuse. In the second parable the king sends
out not one, but a band of servants, who meet
with a flat refusal. Other servants are sent
forth not to punish, not to announce the king's

Paeable or the Maebiage Feast. 5S

purpose to exclude, but to renew the invitation
— to entreat the refusers to reconsider their
resolution. Some make light of it, treat this
second invitation with even greater disrespect
than the first ; while others are so provoked
that they take the messengers, spitefully entreat
them, and slay them. Is it wonderful that the
wrath of the king should in consequence of this
be so much greater than that of the simple
householder ; that he should treat the heavier
offence with a deeper mark of displeasure than
mere exclusion from his presence and his table ?
4 He sends forth his armies and destroys these
murderers, and burns up their city.'

This bringing in of armies, this mention of a
city and its destruction, at once calls up to our
thoughts the ruin hovering over Jerusalem, and
teaches us to connect the parable of the mar-
riage-feast with that of the wicked husband-
men ; both intended to set forth the terrible
punishment of the Jewish people — the taking
of the kingdom from them, and the giving it to
others. In the closing part, however, of the
latter parable — that which speaks of the new
guests brought in from the highways, and the
king coming in and detecting the man without
the wedding-garment, — it goes beyond the for-

60 Tuesday of tee Passion Week.

mer ; it 'points not to Jewish but to Christian
times. And it should fix our attention all the
more upon the closing section of the parable,
that while in all the other teachings of our
Lord during his last day in the Temple, strict
regard was had to the audience that was then
before him, — to the events that were so soon
to transpire in Jerusalem and Judea, he casts
here a prophetic glance upon the ages that
were to succeed the fall of the Jewish theocracy
■ — as if he could not pass away from his pre-in-
timation of the forfeiture of the kingdom by
the sons of Abraham without warning those
who were to be brought in to take their place,
that a no less watchful eye would be upon
them as they sat down at the provided banquet,
that the badge of loyalty without and the spirit
of true loyalty within would be required of all,
and that the want of it would incur a penalty
not less heavy than that visited on their prede-
cessors, the chief priests, the scribes, the
elders.

Their wrath at the speaker knew no bounds.
They would have lain hold of him and borne
him off to inflict the condign punishment that
in their eyes he so fully merited. But they
feared the people. They were not sure of the

The New Attempt. 61

temper of the crowd by which they were sur-
rounded, not sure how far they would be sup-
ported by the Roman authorities. Outwardly
curbing, inwardly nursing their wrath, they
withdrew to try another method. They have
been baffled in the attempt openly to confront
him ) but could they not entangle him in his
talk by some crafty questions, and force from
him an answer that might supply material for
accusation, 'that so they might deliver him
unto the power and authority of the governor ?*
Leaving some of their underlings to watch him,
so as to be ready to report all he says and
does, they retire to hold a secret conclave.
They call the Herodians into council, whom
they find quite willing to combine with them
in the execution of any plan that promised to
prevail against the man whom they equally
hate. The deliberation is brief. A step at
once suggests itself that cannot but succeed,
which, one way or other, is certain to damage,
if not utterly to ruin, their common enemy.
The chief priests, however, and scribes, and
elders, the leading men who have just had that
humiliating colloquy with him, will not gc

* Luke xx. 20.

62 Tuesday op the Passion Week.

*

themselves to carry out this well-concocted
scheme. They have had enough of personal
collision. They will not venture again into his
presence, to be taunted and maligned before
the people. It is besides a very low and hypo-
critical piece of work that is to be done, and
they commit it to other hands, who take with
them some of these Herodians, to give the mat-
ter less of a purely Pharisaic charaeter.

Having got their instructions, these emissaries
approach Jesus, feigning themselves to be sin-
cere men, bent upon ascertaining what their
duty is. And when they come they say to
him, 'Master, we know that thou art true, and
carest for no man, for thou regardest not the
person of men, but teachest the way of God in
truth,' — a very insidious piece of flattery, a
great part of its power lying in the apparent
honesty with which the men who offer it em-
brace themselves among the number of those
for whom they are sure that Jesus will not
care ; a kind of flattery consisting in attribut-
ing to the person flattered a superiority to flat-
tery, to which, if well administered, our weak
humanity is peculiarly susceptible. With this
artful preface, which they hope will tempt him
to speak boldly out the answer that may suit

The Question as to the Tribute-money. 63

them, they say, 'Master, is it lawful to give
tribute to Ccesar, or not? Shall we give, or
shall we not give V It is not the expediency
but the lawfulness of paying the tribute ex-
acted by the Romans, that they ask about.
That lawfulness was denied by many who,
under the force and pressure of necessity, yet
paid the tax. The Pharisees themselves, who
owed much of their power and popularity to
their faithful adherence to the principles of the
old Jewish theocracy, disputed the lawfulness
of the exaction. They took their stand here
upon a very plain declaration of Moses : ' Thou
shalt in any wise set him king over thee whom
the Lord thy God shall choose ; one from
among thy brethren shalt thou set king over
thee : thou mayest not set a stranger over
thee, which is not thy brother.'*

When the Herodian family, one not of Jew-
ish but of Idumean extraction, backed by the
power of Rome, took possession of the throne
of Judea, the entire Jewish Sanhedrim, appeal-
ing to this scripture, protested against what
they rightly enough regarded as a violation of
the Mosaic law. Their protest, however, was

* Deut. xvii. 15.

64 Tuesday or the Passion Week.

unavailing. The first two Herocls were kept
upon the throne by the Roman Emperors,
whose policy it then was through them to rule
Judea. Ere long indeed, and this happened
during our Saviour's life, the mask was dropped.
The sovereignty of Judea was directly assumed
by the Romans. One or other of its northern
provinces was given to one of the Herods, who
governed it under the title of tetrarch or king ;
but Judea proper was placed under a Roman
Procurator. Such a method of foreign rule was
more obnoxious to the Jewish people than the
government of the Herods, who, though by de-
scent Idumean, had by intermarriage with Jew-
ish families won for themselves something like
a Jewish title. It was the policy, and we have
no doubt it was- the honest principle, of the
Pharisees secretly to foster the general and
deep, but repressed and smouldering opposition
to the Roman rule. Distinguished as a reli-
gious party for their extreme and punctilious
attachment to the ceremonialism of the Jewish
law, as a political party they wen golden opin-
ions of the people by standing in the vanguard
as upholders of the national independence.
Among the many political questions which the
state of the country raised, was one about the

The Question as to the Tribute-money. 65

payment of the poll-tax imposed by the foreign
governors. Arguing from the premise that the
whole foundation of the Roman authority was
hollow, grounded on usurpation and incapable
of defence, the leading political Pharisees vehe-
mently denied the legality of the imposition.
The Herodians, the defenders of the legitimacy
of the Herodian dynasty, could not well deny
the justice of the Roman claim to civil supre-
macy, as it had been by the Roman power that
the dynasty which they supported had been in-
stituted. Yet among them there were many
who bore no goodwill to the Italian conquer-
ors, and who looked to the rule of the Herods
as the best protection against an entirely for-
eign domination, — the best preservative of
something like a separate and independent na-
tional existence. Such kind of Herodians per-
haps they were wrho now associated themselves
with the Pharisees in putting the question to
Jesus — 'Master, is it lawful to give tribute to
Caesar or not ? Shall we give, or shall we not
give ?'

They think that they have shut him up ; no
door seems open to evade or to decline an an-
swer. A simple affirmative or a simple nega-
tive must be given. On either side, the difn-

66 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

culty and the danger to Jesus seem nearly
equal. If he shall say it is lawful to give tri-
bute to Caesar, his favor with the people is
gone ; his pretensions to be the Messiah are
scattered to the winds ; from being an object
of attraction and attachment he becomes an ob-
ject of alienation and contempt. Should he,
on the other hand, say, as they fondly hope he
will, that it is not lawful, the weapon is at
once put into their hands which they can use
against him with fatal effect. They have but to
report him to Pilate as a stirrer-up of sedition,
and prove their charge by his own declaration
made in the presence of the people. But they
are not prepared for the manner in which the
insidious question is to be dealt with. ' Why
tempt ye me, ye hypocrites ? ' said Jesus ;
1 show me a penny/ — the coin in common cir-
culation. There were two kinds of money at
that time in use among the Jews, — the Roman,
by which all the common business of life was
transacted, and in which the capitation-tax,
about which the question that had been raised,
was paid ; and the old Jewish, still partially
employed, and in which especially the Temple
tax was paid. They bring him one of the
Roman coins — a denarius. He looks at it and

The Question as to the Tribute-money. 67

says, c Whose image and superscription is this T
They say to him, ' Caesar's.7 He says to them,
1 Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,
and to God the things that are God's.'

By this singular and short reply the hypoc-
risy and the inconsistency of his questioners is
at once exposed. The mere payment of the
tribute is but a secondary matter after all. The
true, the great question was, Should the Roman
rule be submitted to or not ? was it or was it
not lawful to submit to that authority, to bear
the foreign yoke ? This question the Jewish
people and these Pharisees, their most influen-
tial leaders, had suffered so far to be decided.
They had yielded to, and accepted, the foreign
yoke. There was this manifest token of sub-
jection, that Roman money was circulating
among them as the common and accepted coin
of the realm. It was an acknowledged maxim,
it had become a rabbinical proverb, that the
coin of a country tells who is its king. Things
being in that state in Judea, it was an idle, it
was a deceitful, it was a base and malignant
thing, to come to Jesus and try to force from
him such a decision upon that isolated point of
the payment of the tax, as would involve him
with the Roman authorities. Let those who

C8 Tuesday op the Passion Week.

thought Coesar was a usurper, and were pre-
pared to cast off his authority, raise at once the
standard of rebellion, and try the hazard of a
civil war. Let those who, holding the existing
government to be illegitimate, thought at the
same time that matters were not ripe for open
resistance, bide their time, and mature their
measures as well and as secretly as they pleased ;
but let not any, like these Pharisees and Hero-
dians, while fawning upon the Roman gov-
ernor, and forward in all the outward expres-
sions of submission, pretend to have any diffi-
culty about the payment o the tax ; above all,
let them not, while trying to keep up their own
power and popularity by letting it be under-
stood that they sympathized with the people in
their opposition to the foreign rule, try to in-
veigle one who from the first had stood aloof
and declined to take any part whatever in the
political dissensions of the country, so as to ac-
cuse him to the governor, and have him con-
demned and executed for that which, neither in
their own eyes, nor in that of the great major-
ity of their fellow-countrymen, was accounted
as a crime.

Coupling it with his demand for a sight of
the Roman coin, and his pointing to the image

The Question as to the Tkibute-money. G9

and superscription stamped thereon, I have no
doubt that those of Christ's auditors would
have been right who interpreted the first part
of Christ's answer, " Render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's," as implying that it
was lawful to pay the tribute-money ; right
and consistent — so long as Caesar or any one
was acknowledged as king, and the money
from his mint taken and employed — that the
tribute levied by him should be paid ; the duty
of obedience springing from the fact of the ex-
isting dominion. But there can be as little
doubt that those also of that audience would
have been right who interpreted the second
part of Christ's answer, " Render to God the
things that are God's," as carrying with it a
severe and most merited rebuke of his ques-
tioners. For had they but fulfilled that ac-
knowledged obligation, had they been but true
to the spirit and laws of their own ancient gov-
ernment, no Roman soldier had ever invaded
their borders, no Roman governor had sat in
the Hall of Judgment at Jerusalem. It was
their own failure in rendering to God the things
that were his, a failure of which Pharisees and
Herodians had alike been guilty, which had re-
duced their country to bondage ; and now to

70 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

be wrangling about the narrow question of the
payment of the tribute, what was it but as if
the men who by some act and deed had ex-
posed themselves to the infliction of a certain
penalty, were to sit down and discuss on ab-
stract grounds the legitimacy of the authority
by which that penalty was exacted?

Considering Christ's answer in its immediate
bearings upon those who then stood before him,
it is not difficult to see how completely it availed
to silence his questioners, and to put it out of
the power of any of the parties there represent-
ed to turn it against him. They could but
marvel at him, and hold their peace.

But separating ^this memorable saying of
Christ from the particular circumstances under
which it was uttered, and the immediate object
it was intended to subserve, let us look at it as
an aphorism of infinite wisdom, thrown into
that proverbial form that gives it so easy and
so strong a hold upon the memory, promulgat-
ed for the universal guidance of mankind.
' Render unto Caasar the things that are Caesar's ;
unto God the things that are God's.' Both
precepts may and ought to be obeyed. There
need not be, there ought not to be, any dis-
cord or collision between them. Christ would

The Question as to the Tmbute-money. 71

not have imposed the double obligation had
there been any natural or necessary coDflict
between the two. Each may be met and fully
satisfied, the other being left entire and unin-
vaded. It ought never to keep a man from
rendering all due obedience to his earthly sov-
ereign, that he is faithful in his allegiance to
him who is King of kings and Lord of lords.
It ought never to keep him from serving aright
his Heavenly King, that he has an earthly one
to whom all honor and obedience are due. It
would be to misinterpret altogether the golden
rule of Christ, to regard it as if it set before us
two masters, both of whom we were called to
serve, the one having authority in one region
and over so much ground, the other having au-
thority over a quite different region and within
quite different limits, whose claims might occa-
sionally become competing and conflicting. In
rendering to Caesar the things that righteously
are Caesar's, we can never be keeping from God
the things that righteously are God's. And if
the things that are God's be duly and fully
rendered, Ceesar shall get what is his as one of
the very things that God requires at our hands.
The second precept, in fact, embraces the first,
as the greater covers the less.

72 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

Let it, however, be at once acknowledged,
that rich and full of wisdom as the saying of
our Lord is, it appears to fail in application ;
for is not, it may be said, the very point upon
which we especially need guidance, left by it
vague and undecided ? What are the things
that are Caesar's ? What are the things that
are God's ? How far in each case can and may
we go ? Where in each case ought we to
stop ? A line of demarcation it is thought there
must be here between the two sets of obliga-
tions, the two kinds of duty and of service.
But the adage does not help us to lay it down.
Now, strange as it may appear, it is the very
absence of any such precise and definite direc-
tory as the one thus craved for, its careful
avoidance of drawing any separating line be-
tween our civil and political duties on the one
hand, and our religious ones on the other,
which, to our view, stamps it with the signa-
ture of a wisdom that is divine. Christ does
not define what we are to do, or what we are
to refuse to do, in order to render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's. No ; but he gives us
to understand that these never can be, or at
least never ought to be, such as to interfere in
the slightest degree with the higher duty we

Chuech and State. 73

owe to God. He does not define what we are
to do, or what not to do, in order to render to
God the things that are his. No ; but he gives
us to understand that these never are or can
be such as to interfere in the slightest degree
with the dutiful obedience that we owe to
kings and to all that are in authority over us:
We are not, under the cloak of being faithful
to Coasar, to become disobedient to God. We
are not, under the cloak of being obedient to
God, to be unfaithful to our earthly ruler.
And if, with equal singleness of eye, equal
purity of motive, we make it equally a matter
of conscience to keep both the precepts that he
has linked together, no discord shall arise, no
need of dividing lines be felt. I believe it to
be impossible logically to define, so as abso-
lutely to distinguish from one another, our so-
cial and political duties from our religious ones.
To look only at a single section of the wide
domain. When Church and State have come
into conflict, the attempt has alwa}Ts failed, I
believe must ever fail, to mark off the boun-
dary-line between them, and to say exactly
and all along the line where the authority of
the one ends, and that of the other begins.
Collisions, unhappily, have arisen. The past ia

74 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

full of them : no darker chapters in the history
of our race than those in which the record of
these conflicts is preserved. But how has this
come about ? From kings becoming tyrants ;
from their forgetting that they, and all their
subjects along with them, should render to God
the things that are God's ; which cannot be
clone unless the rights of the individual con-
science be respected, and each man left free to
believe and worship as that conscience dic-
tates : — from priests becoming kings, from their
forgetting that Christ's kingdom is not of this
world, and that it was never meant to be so
administered as to call in the aids of earthly
power — to use those instruments which earthly
sovereigns are alone entitled to employ.

On both sides here the deepest wrongs have
been done, the foulest crimes committed. The
august name of royalty has been abused, to
trample upon the still more sacred rights of
conscience. It was abused when the proud
monarch of Babylon raised the golden image
in the plain of Dura, and issued his order that
all people and nations should worship it ; it was
abused when Darius signed the writing and is-
sued the decree that no man should present any
petition to God or man for thirty days, but to

Spipjtual Despotism. 75

himself; it was abused when the rulers of the
Jews summoned Peter and John before them,
and straitly charged them that they should
speak no more of Jesus to the people ; it was
abused when the Emperor of Germany called
Martin Luther before the Diet, and commanded
him to retract the faith that he had derived
from the sacred oracles ; it was abused when
the Stuarts prescribed to the Covenanters of
Scotland the manner in which they were to
worship God, treated all who refused compli-
ance with their ordinances as rebels against the
throne, persecuting them even unto death.
We cannot count Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego, the Apostles of our Lord, Lu-
ther, the Scottish Covenanters, as violators of
the precept, ' Render unto Caesar the things that
are Caesar's,' because at cost or peril of their
lives they heroically resolved to obey God ra-
ther than man. The sacred name of religion
has also been abused. It was abused when
Cromwell taught his men to see in their enemies
the enemies of the Lord, and claimed the divine
■sanction for all the slaughter effected by the
gwords of his Ironsides ; it was abused when
lie who arrogated to himself the title of God's
vicegerent upon earth, raised himself above all

76 Tuesday of Passion Week.

earthly sovereigns, took it on him to sit in judg-
ment upon their titles to their crowns, dethroned
princes at his pleasure, and released subjects
from allegiance to their lawful kings. It was
still more awfully abused when spiritual offend-
ers against the Church — those who believed not
as she would have them to believe, worshipped
not as she would have them to worship — were
treated as criminals, to be punished by the
sword, and the civil power was called on to en-
force the spiritual sentence, and many a dun-
geon witnessed the torture, and many a death-
pile was raised, and many a martyr-spirit was
chased up through the fires to its place beneath
the altar.

Fanatics on the one hand, and despots on the
other, have sadly traversed the Saviour's golden
rule, and in doing so have only taught us how
difficult a thing it is for weak humanity, when
under the blinding influence of prejudice and
passion, to bear in mind the double precept of
our Lord : ' Render to Caesar the things that
are Caesar's : to God the things that are Gods.'

B

V.

QUESTION OF THE SADDUCEES AS TO THE
RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.*

AFFLED and exposed by Christ's answer

as to the payment of the tribute-money,
the Pharisees retire. And now their great
rivals, the Sadducees, take the field, and try to
entangle Jesus in his talk. Though constitut-
ing a powerful party, it is not till the closing
scene of the Saviour's life that the Sadducees
appear to have taken any active part against
him. It was alien from their disposition to in-
terfere with any popular religious movement
till it took such shape as made it in their eyes
dangerous to the state, and then they did not
scruple summarily to quench it. They looked
with a haughty contempt upon what they
regarded as the groundless beliefs and idle

* Matt. xlii. 23-33 ; Mark xii. 18-27 ; Luke xx. 27-40.

78 Tuesday of Passion "Week.

superstitious practices of the great bulk of
their countrymen. In common with them they
believed indeed in the divine origin of the Jew-
ish faith, restricted as they took that faith to
be, mainly to the announcement that there was
but one God, the God of Israel, in opposition
to all idolatry. They admitted the divine
authority of the laws and institutions of Moses,
whom they especially honored as their great
heaven-sent and heaven-instructed lawgiver.
But they rejected the whole of that oral tradi-
tion which had grown up around the primitive
Mosaic revelation, which had come generally to
be regarded, and was especially defended by
the Pharisees, as of equal authority with it.
They accepted the other books of the Old Tes-
tament as well as the Pentateuch, but there
seems good reason to believe that they held the
latter in peculiar and pre-eminent esteem. In
their interpretation o" the Pentateuch they
adhered rigidly to the letter, rejecting all the
false glosses and elaborate explanations and in-
ferences which the Pharisaic Rabbis had intro-
duced. Into their religious creed the Sad-
ducees would admit nothing which Moses had
not directly and unambiguously announced.
True to their character as the freethinkers or

Question of the Saducees. 79

rationalists of their age and nation, they were
incredulous as to any other existences or
powers influencing human affairs beyond those
that lay open to the observation of their senses.
They did not — as professed disciples of Moses
they could not— repudiate the agency of God
as exerted in the creation and government of
the world. But they limited that agency to a
general supervision and control which left full
scope to human volition and human effort,
which they regarded as the chief factors in the
unfolding of events. So far as their professed
faith would let them, they were materialists.
They acknowledged the existence of one great
Spirit. They could not deny that beings called
angels had occasionally, in the early times
whose history was recorded by Moses, appeared
to take some part in earthly affairs. But, dis-
believing in the existence of any other spirit
save that of the Supreme, whatever their ex-
planation of these angelic manifestations, it was
one that left them at liberty to deny, as they
did, that there was any permanent and sepa-
rate order of beings called angels standing be-
tween men and God. They said that there
was ' no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit.'*

* Acts xxiii. 8.

80 Tuesday of Passion Week.

They believed in the soul of man only as exhi-
bited in and by the body which enshrined it ;
with that body it perished at death. The
future state, a world of rewards and punish-
ments hereafter for the things now done in the
bochy, was but a dream. To speak of the
resurrection of the body at some after period
was a solecism. There was no spirit for it to
be re-united with. It might please God, out
of the materials that had once formed one
human body, to make another like it, and to
plant in it another soul ; but there was, there
could be, no real resurrection of the dead, no
rising to life again of the same beings that had
been buried. If such a thing could be, and
were actually to take place, the beings so raised
would return (as they imagined) to the same
kind of life as that which previously had been
theirs ; and from the very absurdities and con-
tradictions which would be implied in this, they
drew many an argument against the popular
belief in a resurrection, which those adhering to
that belief, holding it as they did in a very
gross and materialist fashion, were unable to
meet.

How did such men look upon Jesus Christ ?
Perhaps in the first instance as a weak but

Question of the Sadducees. gi

harmless enthusiast, little worth their notice, or
worth only a smile or a scoff. His teaching,
so far as it was reported to them, or they knew
anything about it, was utterly distasteful to
them ; it was animated by a spirit totally the
reverse of theirs : it was full of faith in the in-
visible. In it the spiritual, the future, the eter-
nal, not only enwrapped but absorbed the pre-
sent, the temporary, the sensible. God was
no longer a mere name for a remote and inac-
cessible Being, who sat aloof upon a throne of
exalted supremacy. He was the Father, con-
tinually engaged in guiding, protecting, provid-
ing ; clothing the lilies of the field ; feeding
the fowls of the air ; causing his sun to shine ;
sending his rain from heaven ; caring for all the
creatures of his power, all the children of his
love. No thought was to be taken for the
body as compared with that which should be
taken for the soul. The world beyond the
present stood out in vivid perspective and
relief. The angels of God were represented
as rejoicing there over each sinner that re-
pented on earth, and the spirits of the dead as
waiting to welcome each brother spirit as it
passed up to its place beside them in the
heavens.

82 Tuesday of Passion Week.

How the Sadducees regarded the miracles of
our Lord it is difficult to say. They would re-
gard his feeding of the hungry and his curing
of the diseased either as impositions, or exer-
cises of some occult power of which he had be-
come possessed. But when he pretended to
cast out devils and to raise the dead, his mira-
cles came into direct collision with their unbe-
lief, and awakened more than incredulity —
stirred up malignity. He was in their eyes a
base and bad man who could thus deceive the
people. If he would prove that he came from
God, let some sign direct from God be given.
The only occasion on which, during the course
of our Saviour's ministry, the Sadducees inter-
fered with him, was when they once joined the
Pharisees in demanding from him a sign from
heaven. They got signs enough, some of them
wrought under their own eyes, as in the healing
of the man born blind, and in the raising of
Lazarus, but signs which only increasingly ex-
asperated them, so that when they saw that the
movement created by Jesus was assuming polit-
ically so threatening an aspect, they were quite
willing at last to league with the Pharisees, and
assist in removing him ; for it was better, so
said one of themselves, that one man should die

Question of the Sadducees. 83

than that the whole nation should perish,
Parties to the recent resolution come to by the
Sanhedrim, the Sadducees were watching with
as jealous eyes as the Pharisees all that was tak-
ing place in the courts of the Temple. Though
conspiring with them in their design, it may
have been with some degree of secret compla-
cency that they noticed how in the word-battle
about the tribute money he had foiled the rival
sect. They have a question of their own, how-
ever, with which, as they fancy, he will find it
more difficult to deal ; one with which they had
often pressed their adversaries, and to which
they had never got any satisfactory reply.
They will see how Jesus will deal with it. If
he agree with them, then adieu to his power with
the people ; if he fail to answer, what a triumph
both over him and all credulous believers in a
resurrection !

They state their case and propose their query.
Moses had commanded that if a Jew died child-
less, leaving a widow, his brother should marry
her, and had ruled that the child of the second
marriage should be reckoned as the heir of the
brother predeceased. There were seven bro-
thers, they told Jesus, who all died, each hav-
ing been successively the husband of the same

84 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

woman ; and last of all the woman died . ' in
the resurrection, therefore,' they say to him,
very confidently — somewhat coarsely and con-
temptuously,— ' whose wife shall she be of the
seven ?' Christ's answer is direct and empha-
tic. 'Ye do *err,' he says, 'not knowing the
Scriptures, nor the power of God.' His charge
against them is not one of hypocrisy, but of
error, of wrong belief, that error having a two-
fold source : (1.) Their ignorance of the mean-
ing of the Scriptures, of that very book of Moses
from which they had quoted ; ( 2.) Their igno-
rance of the power of God, of the manner of its
exercise generally, and more particularly, of the
way in which it should be exercised in effecting
that resurrection which they denied. Taking
these sources of error in inverse order, Jesus
first unfolds wherein their errors as to the pow-
er of God consisted. They looked upon it too
much as a mere force, iUimitable indeed, yet
fixed, unvarying, working now as it had ever
done before, to work hereafter even as it was
working now. They failed to recognize it as
the forthputting of the energy of a living Be-
ing who was ever thereby embodying his will,
expressing his purposes, executing his plans ;
■ — the very same error as to the power of God

Question of the Sadducees. 85

which lies at the root of a large part of our
modern infidelity, traceable, as it easily is, up
to a denial of the personal agency of a Being
who has plans and purposes and a will of which
the whole creation is but a constant and grad-
ual development. But, still more particularly,
the Sadducees had erred in limiting the future
manifestation of the power of God, in imagin-
ing that if the dead were to rise again, they
were to live subject to the same conditions,
united to each other by the same relationships
with those that now exist. Prior to the Incar-
nation, very little beyond the bare fact that
there was to be a resurrection of the dead had
been revealed. Had any right conceptions of
the character and power of the great Creator
been entertained, preparing the mind that en-
tertained them for an endless variety in the fu-
ture as we now know that there has been in
the past, the very nature of the fact, apart
from all further information about it, that there
was to be hereafter a general resurrection of
the dead, should have stifled in the birth such
an idle objection as that which these Sadducees
were urging ; for, come how it might, let it be
attended with whatever other outward changes
in the physical condition of our globe, it was in

86 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

itself a change too great to allow of any ideas
borrowed from the present condition of things
being transferred to that new state of which it
must form the initial stage. But Jesus goes a
step further than this : he puts his hand forward
partially to lift the veil, and tell somewhat of
the nature and the extent to which these
changes will be carried which the resurrection
will involve. ' And Jesus, answering, said un-
to them, The children of this world marry, and
are given in marriage : but they which shall be
accounted worthy to obtain that world, and
the resurrection from the dead, neither marry
nor are given in marriage : neither can they die
any more : for they are equal unto the angels ;
and are the children of God, being the children
of the resurrection.'* This much is told us
here, that great changes are in store for us ;
that out of the grave a new economy is to arise,
elevated in all its conditions and relationships
above that under which we now dwell. But
how much also remains untold ; how much to
check that prurient curiosity with which we are
tempted to pry into the future, and extort from
it its secrets !

' Luke xx. 34-36.

Question of the Sadducees. 87

We have got in the Bible two brief sketches
which none but the finger of God could have
drawn, a sketch of the beginning and a sketch
of the end of the world as it now is. The one
the picture of the past, the story of the crea-
tion, how very difficult has it been for us to
decipher it ; how slowly are we spelling out its
meaning ; how much of it still remains obscure ;
how utterly should we have failed in interpret-
ing it aright, had it not so happened that, in
these later years, we have got access to other
records, also somewhat dim as yet, which the
events as they occurred stamped enduringly
upon the solid rocks. Now if the scriptural
picture of the past was so dark and so difficult
to understand, was in our hands so long mis-
understood and misinterpreted, how can we ex-
pect it to be otherwise with the scriptural pic-
ture of the future, which tells of a coming epoch
more unlike the present than is the present to
any epoch of the past ? How wise then and
becoming for us, till the events occur that shall
yield the true interpretation, to confine our-
selves to the simple and general truths that lie
upon the face of those figurative descriptions
of the future state which abound in the Bible,
and which ought never to be treated as liter-

88 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

ally and historically true. How vain to use
what were meant only to be obscure hints, as
stepping-stones, from which fancy may safely
mount and soar away at random. Let us be
satisfied with the little that we can now know.
It doth not yet appear what we shall be. We
see but through a glass darkly, nor will any
straining of our eyeballs make clearer that
cloudy medium through which alone we are
permitted to gaze. Standing with that won-
derful future before us, on which our eye can-
not but often and eagerly be fixed, there is
happily for us another and a better occupation
than that of filling the void spaces with forms
and colors of our own creation. Children of
that coming resurrection we all must be. No
mountain shall have breadth enough to cover
us, no ocean depth enough to hide us, when
once the imperial summons soundeth, " Arise
ye dead, and come to judgment." But chil-
dren of a blessed resurrection, of the resurrec-
tion unto life, we can only be by becoming
now the children of God. Let that be our
present, our steadfast aim ; let that goal be
reached, and then let us rest quietly in the as-
surance that, raised with Christ, we shall be
sharers of his immortality, shall die no more,

Tee Question of tee Sadducees. 89

but be as the angels which are in hea-
ven.

The error of the Sadducees as to the power
of God having been exposed, Christ proceeds
to notice their error as to the Scriptures : ' As
touching the dead that they rise ; have ye not
read in the book of Moses V* Among the Jews,
down till near the times of Christ, the first five
books of our Bible formed but one book, writ-
ten continuously on one roll of parchment. It
is out of this book, called ordinarily the Book
of the Law, that he quotes a sentence in proof
of the resurrection. He might have cited
other ampler and much clearer testimony from
other parts of the sacred Scriptures, especially
from the Psalms and the books of Job, Daniel,
and Hosea ; but he is dealing now with the
Sadducees, and he takes the passage from the
same writings to which they had themselves
appealed. ' Have ye not read in the book of
Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him,
saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God
of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? He is not
the God of the dead, but the God of the living :
ye therefore do greatly err.'j* The link that

* Mark xii. 26. + Mark xii. 26, 27.

90 Tuesday of Passion Week.

binds here the premise to the conclusion is any-
thing but apparent at first sight. The infer-
ence seems neither natural nor necessary.
Does God's calling himself the God of the de-
parted patriarchs of itself prove that these
patriarchs were still living ? Is this not the
simple and only meaning of the passage quoted,
that he who had been the God of the fathers
would be the God of the children ? Even
granting that the continued existence of those,
of whom God spake as being still their God,
was to be legitimately inferred from the ex-
pression cited, what proof was involved in that
of their resurrection ? Might the soul not live
though the body were left forever in the grave ?
In answer to such questions, let it be noted
that Christ's reply to the Sadducees was evi-
dently rather general than specific — cut at the
root of their unbelief rather than at the par-
ticular branch of it pressed on his regard.
These men were unbelievers in the resurrec-
tion of the body, because they were unbelievers,
in the immortality of the soul. The two were
so connected in their regards that they stood
or fell together. Prove to them the one, the
major proposition — that the soul survived the
dissolution of the body, — and }^ou cut away

The Question of the Sadducees. 91

the ground upon which their rejection of the
other rested. Establish the fact that Abraham,
and Isaac, and Jacob were still living when
God spake of them as he did to Moses from the
bush, and you overturned the foundation of
their infidelity. And this is what Jesus does,
not so much by argument, as by his own
authoritative declaration that there lay in the
phrase, ' I am the God of Abraham, and Isaac,
and Jacob/ a depth of meaning that the Sad-
ducees had failed to penetrate, — that it was
nothing short of an announcement that the
relationship in which God stood to these de-
parted patriarchs was so peculiar, so close, so
gracious, as to preclude the possibility of either
soul or body ever finally perishing, as to involve
at once the immortality of the one and the
resurrection of the other. We would be
ready at once to acknowledge that, had Christ
not put this meaning upon the phrase, had
he not furnished us with this key for the
unlocking of its full significance, it would not
have appeared to us necessarily to have in-
volved the inference that is drawn from it.
But let us be equally ready to accept the in-
terpretation of it that he has given. "We
would do so even though the links that bound the

92 Tuesday of Passion "Week.

premise to the conclusion remained obscure ;
but we lay this brief compendious argument in
in favor of the resurrection alongside that ex-
panded proof which St. Paul unfolds in the
15th chapter of the First Epistle to the Corin-
thians, and light begins to dawn upon it.

The idle question of the Sadducees was much
akin in character, owned the same spiritual
pedigree, with that dealt with by the apostle :
1 But some man will say, How are the dead
raised up ? and with what body do they come?'
As Jesus met the query put to him about the
woman and her seven husbands, by telling his
questioners that they utterly mistook the nature
of the changes that the resurrection was to
bring with it, for in that world it was to usher
in, there was to be neither marrying nor giv-
ing in marriage ; so Paul met the questioners
of his day by telling them that they too had
fallen into the like mistake of confounding the
future with the present ; that it was not to be
the same body that was buried which was to
rise, but one as different from it as the seed
that rots beneath the sod is from the stalk of
wheat that issues from it ; that flesh and blood
could not inherit the kingdom of Grod ; that the
natural was to be changed into the spiritual.

Question of the Sadducees. 93

the corruptible into the incorruptible, the ter-
restrial into the celestial. And just as Christ
deduces from the covenant relationship in
which God stood to the patriarchs the pre-
servation of their entire being, and the cloth-
ing it with a deathless immortality, even so
from the relationship in which Jesus stands to
all who are in vital union with him, does the
Apostle draw the very same conclusion. In
taking their nature on him, in bearing their
sins, in dying that they might live, Jesus took
their whole humanity and wound it round him,
and so identified it with his own being and
estate, that as in him they live, with him they
must rise again, his life involving theirs, his
resurrection involving theirs. Mysterious in-
corporating union with Jesus Christ 1 that be-
gins with the simple act of trust and- love which
binds our weak and sinful spirit to our Re-
deemer, and brings us into such close and hal-
lowed fellowship with Gocl, that we can hear
him say to us, ' I am thy God, even as I was
the God of. Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob,
and of the faithful in all ages !' — what a linked
array of untold incalculable benefits and bless-
ings does it carry in its train ! This among
the rest, that, by passing them through the

94 Tuesday of the Passion TVeek.

corruption of the grave, he shall change these
bodies of ours and make them like to his own
glorious body ; and associate them as meet
companions of the purified spirits that he shall
exalt to the glories and services and blessed-
ness of heaven. Dead by nature as we all are
in our sins, let us so embrace Him who is the
resurrection and the life that we shall be quick-
ened together with Christ, raised up together
with him through faith of the operation of God
who hath raised him from the dead. ' For if
Christ be in you, the body is dead because of
sin, but the spirit is life because of righteous-
ness ; and if the Spirit of Him that raised up
Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that
raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that
dwelleth in you.

VI.

THE LAWYER'S QUESTION — THE TWO GREAT COM-
MANDMENTS— christ, david's son and david's

LORD.*

PHARISEES, Herodians, Sadducees have
each in turn been foiled in their assaults.
Jesus has either turned aside the edge of their
insidious questions, or has given such reply as
recoils upon the questioners. Among the au-
ditors who are standing by whilst this ques-
tioning is going on, there is one, himself a
Pharisee and a scribe, who, struck with admi-
ration at our Lord's answer, ventures an in-
quiry of his own. In making it he does not
appear to have been animated by any sinister
or malignant motive. He may, as St. Mat-
thew seems to intimate, have been incited by
others to put his question, in the hope that it

* Matt. xxii. 34-46 : Mark xii. 28-37.

96 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

might puzzle or perplex, but the question itself
has no such character, reveals no such intent ;
bearing as it does all the marks of being the
ingenuous inquiry of one who, disturbed and
dissatisfied with the manifold classifications and
frivolous distinctions introduced by the ordinary
teachers of the law, sought the judgment of
Jesus in addressing to him the question,
" Master, which is the great, the first of .all the
commandments ? Is there any one command-
ment which is entitled to pre-eminence over all
the rest? if there be, what is that one com-
mand, and upon what ground does its claim to
supremacy repose ?" Christ's answer is direct
and explicit. There is, he tells the questioner,
such a command. To love the Lord our God
with all our heart and soul, and mind and
strength, is the first and the great command-
ment of the law. But there is another, a
second commandment, like unto the first, flow-
ing out of it, and founded on it : ' Thou shalt
love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two
commandments hang all the law and the pro-
phets.'

The law of God, according to the view thus
given of it, was not an aggregation of so many
separate precepts, some of which a man might

The Lawyer's Question. 97

keep, while he broke others ; suggesting of
course the double question whether he broke
more than he kept, as if that were to decide
whether on the whole he was a breaker or a
keeper of the law, or, were that held to be too
rude and mechanical a method of judging, sug-
gesting a comparison in point of importance
between those commands that were kept and
those that were broken, so as to supply a bet-
ter estimate of the amount and value of the
obedience rendered. In opposition to all such
views of the law of Grod, — views not confined
to the Scribes and Pharisees of Christ's day,
.which lie at the bottom of all those crude
notions as to man's actual standing towards the
divine law which circulate widely in the world
we live in, Jesus teaches that a divine unity
pervades that law, a unity that cannot be
broken : all its single and separate commands
resting upon a common, firm, immutable basis ;
all so connected in meaning, spirit, and obliga-
tion, that you cannot truly obey one without
obeying all, nor break one without breaking all.
Looking at the law in this oneness of character,
Jesus points to the two requirements of love
to God and love to one another as containing
within themselves the sum and substance of the
whole.

98 Tuesday of Passion Week.

First we are called upon to love the Lord,
to love him as our God, to love him with all
our heart. It is not a mere barren faith in his
divinity, a cold and distant homage, a bare ac-
knowledgment of his sovereign right, a studi-
ous observance of prescribed forms of worship,
the presenting of offerings, the making of sac-
rifices in his name and for his glory, that is re-
quired. Nothing but the supreme love of the
heart, pouring out the wealth of its affections
on him, can meet this great demand. There
must be no other God before or beside him, no
other having an equal or rival place in our re-
gards. All idolatrous self-love, creature-love,
world-love, must be renounced in order that
this first and greatest of the commands be kept.
1 And thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'
Thyself thou mayest and shouldest love, bu+
not supremely, not as distinct from or indepen-
dent of God, but as one of his children, as an
agent in his hands, as an instrument of his
grace, as a vessel fashioned for his honor. Thus
and thus only may self-love rightly form part
of thy being, and enter into thy motives of
action. And thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself : a mode and measure of loving others
which can be truly followed and obeyed only

The Lawyer's Question. 99

when love to God has predominated over the
natural self-idolatry ; for if a man love himself
supremely, he can love no other as he loves
himself. All, however, is reduced to order, all
brought within the limits of a possible achieve-
ment, when God gets his first and rightful place.
You cannot love the God of love as he requires,
without loving your neighbor also. The one love
includes the other, sustains and modulates the
other. If a man say he loves God, and hateth his
brother, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
It is in this way that the second command is
like unto the first. They are two, and at the
same time one. The first cannot be kept while
the second is broken, nor the second be kept
while the first is broken. A false or spurious
kind of love to God, showing itself in all man-
ner of superstitious worship and self-mortifica-
tion, you may have, coupled with intensely ma-
lign emotion towards others. Nay more, you
may not only have them in conjunction, but the
first ministering to the second — for there have
been no greater haters of their fellow-men
than those who have cherished such kind of
love to God, — but the true, the only genuine
love to God, we cannot have, without its gene-
rating kindly and benevolent affections towards

100 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

those who, equally with ourselves, are the ob-
jects of the divine regard. And, on the other
hand, you may have a very ardent love to
others apart from any deep love to God ; but
search its nature and mark its development, and
you will find that neither as to the objects it
aims at, nor as to the boundaries it observes,
does it come up to a faithful obedience to that
requirement which obliges us to love our neigh-
bor as we love ourselves.

1 On these two commandments hang all the
law and the prophets.' Love is the golden link
that binds the whole together, and hangs the
whole upon the Throne of the Eternal. Love is
the fulfilling of the law. No precept is or can
be kept where it is wanting. If love be pres-
ent, obedience is at once rendered easy, and
gets the character that makes it pleasing in the
sight of God.

The scribe's reply to our Lord's answer shows
how thoroughly he s}rmpathized with it. He
had admired the wisdom shown in Christ's deal-
ing with other questioners. He admires still
more the wisdom shown in the answer to his
own question. It accords entirely with what,
after much thought bestowed upon the matter,
he had himself come to believe. ' Well, Master,

The Lawyek's Question. 101

thou hast said the truth ; for there is one God,
and there is none other but he ; and to love
him with all the heart, and all the understand-
ing, and with all the soul, and with all the
strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is
more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacri-
fices.' The alacrity, the warmth, the vigor of
this response, tell how intense the conviction
was of which it was the utterance. Born and
brought up though he had been in the very
heart of a region where other and very differ-
ent sentiments prevailed, he had come to see
the comparative worthlessness of mere ceremo-
nialism ; that offerings and sacrifices were worse
than idle forms, mere solemn mockeries of God,
if that inner sentiment of the heart, whence
only they could have life and value, were want-
ing ; that the only true and animating principle
of all piety towards God, and of all right con-
duct towards our fellow-men, was love ; that
as the body without the spirit is dead, so all the
mass of outward service without love was dead
also. In our turn we wonder at the clear and
just conception of the relative importance of the
moral and the ceremonial, to which, placed as
he had been, this man had reached. But far
as he has got, he yet lacked one thing. He

102 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

had ceased to put that value Upon burnt-offer-
ings and sacrifices that the mass of his country-
men did. His searching eye had seen through
the hollowness of that external sanctimonious-
ness which was cultivated all around him with
such sedulous care. But he had not yet come
to see all that the first and greatest of the law's
commands required, nor to feel how far short
of its requirement his obedience had fallen.
The hollowness of one way of attempting to
obey it he fully saw, but the imperfections of
that way which he had learned to put in its
place, its impotence to justify the sinner before
the tribunal of the Most High, he had not per-
ceived. He wanted the humble, broken, con-
trite heart ; and so Jesus says to him, 'Thou
art not far from the kingdon of God ;' not far
from, but yet not in ; nearer by many a step
than those who are going about in the rounds
of a punctilious pietism to establish a righteous-
ness of their own before God, but still not across
the border-line which encompasses that king-
dom which we must enter in the spirit of peni-
tence and faith, as knowing and feeling that by
the deeds of the law, how far soever our com-
pliance with it be carried, no flesh living can be
justified in the sight of God. Let the judg-

The Lawyer's Question. 103

ment passed upon this man's position by the
unerring Judge proclaim to us the truth, that
it is not enough to have made the discovery of
the worthlessness of all service without love ;
that to get into the kingdom the further discov-
ery must be made, that in all things, and espe-
cially in that very love to God which primarily
and above all is required of us, we come so
miserably short, have so grievously offended,
that our only resourse is to throw ourselves
upon the rich mercy of our God revealed in
Jesus Christ.

And was it not for the very purpose of turn-
ing the eyes of that scribe, the eyes of those
who then stood around him, and the eyes of the
men of all ages upon Himself, as the great reveal-
er of the Father, that Jesus, having put all to
silence, so that no man durst ask him any fur-
ther question, in his turn becomes a questioner?
The Law and the Prophets, whose sum and sub-
stance, so far as they were a code of duty, he
had just declared, had something more in them
than authoritative commands, were meant to
accomplish other purposes Joesides that of milk-
ing known to men their duty to God and to
one another. There were promises and pro-
phecies in them as well as precepts ; prophecies

104 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

and promises pointing to him by whom the law
was to be magnified and made honorable. The
law carried the gospel in its bosom. As to the
one, the scribe put a question to Jesus, which
goes to the very heart of the matter : as to the
other, Jesus, seeing the Pharisees gathered
around him, puts a question to them, which
does the same. ' What think ye,' he says, ' of
Christ ? whose son is he ?' The answer springs
at once to every lip.

' Son of David ' was the familiar, the favorite
title, by which Christ, the expected Messiah,
was known among them. When amazed by
his miracles, the people began to conjecture
that he was indeed the Christ, they said to one
another, ' Is not this the son of David ?' When
the woman of Syrophenicia, and the two blind
beggars of Capernaum, Bartimeus of Jericho,
and others, would express their faith in his
Messiahship, they did it by saying, ' Have
mercy on us, thou son of David.' When the
multitude, translated for the time out of incre-
dulity into belief, surrounded him on his late
triumphal entry into Jerusalem, they exclaimed,
' Hosanna to the son of David !' a salutation
that the very children in the Temple next day
repeated — showing us how wide and general

The Lawyer's Question. 105

was the knowledge of this name. The answer
then to Christ's first question is immediate
and unhesitating. Not so the answer to the
second : ' He saith unto them, How then doth
David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The Lord
said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
till I make thine enemies thy footstool ? If
David then call him Lord, how ia he his son V
Jesus quotes here the verse of the 110th Psalm,
a psalm assumed by him, and acknowledged by
the Jews, to have been written by David,
under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Two
great personages appear in it, the one speaking
of and to the other. It is with the high posi-
tion, the complex character, the glorious desti-
nies of the latter that the psalm is occupied
throughout. Addressed by the highest of all
epithets, he is introduced as sitting on the
loftiest of all elevations. His kingly power,
his eternal priesthood, his vast and ever-widen-
ing sway, are successively set forth. The Jews
admitted that these were prophecies touching
the Messiah. But between them and any right
apprehension of the true character of the spir-
itual rule and empire of that Messiah there
hung an obscuring mist. The bright and gor-
geous vision that had floated for ages before

106 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

the eyes of the Jewish people was that of the
future advent of a King, who was to raise the
Jewish commonwealth to supremacy over the
nations ; the vision of an earthly visible world-
wide monarchy to be set up by the son of
David ; a vision which, as their affairs grew
dark and desperate, and their national inde-
pendence was more and more threatened,
stood forth in brighter and brighter coloring to
gild the clouds that closed in darkness above
their heads ; a vision clung to with an enthu-
siastic devotion which ennobled them as a
nation, and led on to the deeds of chivalrous
heroism, which have crowned with glory their
last wars with the Romans, but which sunk
them into spiritual blindness, and kept them from
understanding the very prophecies upon which
it ostensibly was founded. It was this vision,
baseless as it was bright, which Jesus seeks to
dissipate by putting to them his pointed inquiry :
1 If Christ be David's son, how could he at the
same time be David's Lord ?' The true key to
that announcement in the 110th Psalm, and to
many similar prophecies, was wanting to the
Jews so long as the true and proper divinity,
as well as the true and proper humanity, of

David's Son and David's Lokd. 107

their Messiah remained unperceived and unac-
knowledged.

How often and how strikingly does Holy
Writ set forth the double, and as it might seem
incongruous relationship of Christ to David, as
being at once his son and his Sovereign, his
successor and yet his Lord, — set forth the sin-
gular, and as it might seem incompatible, qual-
ities or characteristics that belong to him !
'And there shall come forth,' saith the prophet
Isaiah, ' a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a
Branch shall grow out of his roots.'* He is
the rod, the branch growing up out of, hanging
upon, and supported by the parent stem. But
anon the image changes, and the rod, the
branch, becomes the root by which the stem
itself is supplied with nourishment and strength :
— ' And in that day there shall be a root of
Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the
people ; to it shall the Gentiles seek : and his
rest shall be glorious.'f 'Behold,' saith Jere-
miah, 'the days come, saith the Lord, that I
will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a
King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute
judgment and justice in the earth. In his
days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall

* lea. xi. 1. t Isa. xi. 10.

108 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

dwell safely ; and this is his name whereby he
shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness.'*
Here, by an equal violence of figurative lan-
guage, the helpless dependent branch turns in-
to a king, and that king is elevated, not to an
earthly, but to the Heavenly Throne. Simi-
larly in Zechariah : ' Thus speaketh the Lord
of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name
is The Branch ; and he shall grow up out of
his place, and he shall build the temple of the
Lord : even he shall build the temple of the
Lord ; and he shall bear the glory, and shall
sit and rule upon his throne ; and he shall be
a priest upon his throne : and the counsel of
peace shall be between them both.'f Here,
by a curious metamorphosis, the Branch first
becomes the builder of a temple, then a ruler
upon a throne, then a priest and king together,
still upon the throne, establishing in that two-
fold capacity, or by help of the twofold prero-
gatives of prince and priest, the counsel or cov-
enant or peace for Israel. So is it in the an-
cient prophecies, and so is it also in the visions
of the Apocalypse. What is the first vision
that John gets of Jesus in the heavenly places?
A door is opened in heaven, a throne is seen

* Jer. xxiii. 5, 6. + Zecb. vi 12, 13.

David's Son and David's Lord. 109

set there ; the right hand of him who sits upon
the throne holds out the book sealed with the
seven seals. The strong angel proclaims with
the loud voice, 'Who is worthy to open the
book, and to loose the seals thereof?' The
challenge is made, resounds through heaven,
remains unanswered. The apostle begins to
weep, because no man is found worthy to open
and to read the book. One of the elders says
to him, ' Weep not ; behold, the Lion of the
tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath pre-
vailed to open the book, and to loose the seven
seals thereof.' John looks around for this
opener coming, and lo ! in the midst of the
throne there stands a Lamb as it had been
slain, who takes the book and opens all its
seals. He is told to look for a lion, and beheld
a lamb. The lion and the lamb : the strong-
est and the fiercest, the weakest and the gen-
tlest of animals ; in Jesus the qualities of both
appear, blended in singular yet most attractive
combination. And in the last revelation of
himself he makes to John, Jesus says, ' I am
the root and the offspring — the root and the
branch — of David, and the bright and morn-
ing star.'

110 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

1 What think ye of Christ ? whose son is he ?
How can he be David's son and David's Lord ?'
These last words of our Lord's public ministry,
which filled the Temple courts of old, and found
there no reply, are they not still going forth
wherever the gospel of his grace is preached,
waiting a response ? Nor can any fit response
be ever given till we see and be ready to ac-
knowledge that in him, our Saviour, there meet
and mingle all divine and human attributes —
David's Lord in his divinity, David's son in his
humanity ; till we own him, and cleave to him,
and hang upon him as at once our elder broth-
er, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and
our Lord and our God ; the morning star on
the brow of our dark night, that heralds the
bright, the cloudless, the unending day.

vn.

THE WOES DENOUNCED UPON THE PHARISEES.*

ADDRESSING himself specially to the
Pharisees, Jesus asked them how Christ
could be at once David's son and David's Lord,
and they stood mute before him.

It is of this particular occasion that St. Mark
says, " then the common people heard him
gladly." They have been looking on and lis-
tening with intense curiosity — as well they
might, for it is truly a marvellous scene that is
before them. Here, on the one side, is one of
themselves, an obscure Galilean, with no rank,
or office, or acknowledged authority. There,
on the other, stand the first men of the land,
the chief of the priesthood the heads of the
scribes. It had long been known that the
Pharisees repudiated and condemned the teach-
ing of Christ. More recently their enmity had

* Matt, xxiii. ; Mark xii. 38-40 ; Luke xx. 45-47.

112 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

come to a head. They had even offered a re-
ward for his apprehension. Now they meet
him face to face in the most public place in all
the city. Will they arrest him ? will they or-
der their officers to bind him and carry him off
to prison ? No : in presence of the people
they will crush with their words ; they will
convict him of ignorance, or incompetence, or
sedition. And how shall this untaught, un-
friended, unprotected man be able to stand
against such odds ? One can well enough im-
agine that when the strange word-duel in the
Temple courts commenced, the sympathy of
the people would be on Christ's side. Their
sympathy deepens, wonder grows into admira-
tion, as in each succeeding encounter he comes
off more than conqueror, till at last his oppo-
nents stand silenced before him. Still, how-
ever, with all the wonder and all the admira-
tion that Christ excites, other disturbing and
perplexing emotions stir the breasts of the
spectators : for those opponents of Jesus are
the men to whom from infancy they have been
taught to look up with unbounded reverence ;
to whose authority, especially in all matters of
religio'us faith and practice, they have been ac-
customed implicitly to bow. The adversaries

Woes denounced upon the Phatjsees. 113

of Jesus have been baffled but not convinced ;
an unquenched, an intensified hatred to him
is obviously burning within their breasts.
How is it that none of their rulers will receive
him, that almost to a man they are so bitterly
opposed to him ?

May we not believe that in its immediate and
direct object, as addressed to the perplexed and
excited crowd that then stood before and
around him, the discourse recorded in the 23d
chapter cf St. Matthew was intended to take
a stumbling-block out of their way. and by the
bold and fearless exposure that it made of the
character and conduct of the Pharisees, to
emancipate the people from that blind thraldom
to their old religious leaders in which they had
so long been held? But the discourse had a
wider scope. It was our Lord's last day in the
Temple, his last time of openly addressing the
people, the closing hour of his public ministry.
This interest surrounds the words then spoken,
that it was in them that his last farewell to the
Temple, his farewell to his countrymen, was
taken ; words not spoken for that audience
only, words of solemn warning for his followers
in all ages, for the men of every generation.
Regarding it in this light, without entering into

114 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

any minute or consecutive exposition, let us
offer one or two general reflections upon this
discourse of our Saviour.

1. It tells us what it was that chiefly kindled
against it the burning indignation of Jesus
Christ. Against what are his terrible denunci-
ations pointed ? Not against either covert scep-
ticism or open infidelity. The Sadducees are
here comparatively overlooked. Not against
those sins, to which one or other of the pas-
sions and instincts of our nature prompt when
allowed unbridled sway. A very singular and
instructive contrast shows itself throughout his
ministry betwixt our Lord's treatment of that
class of offences, and of the one which he here
exposes. Compare, for instance, his treatment
of the woman who had been a sinner, and of
her to whom he said, ' Neither do I condemn
thee, go and sin no more,' with his treatment
of the haughty Pharisee, at whose table he met
the one, and of the double-hearted men who
brought to him the other. It is among those
making the largest professions of piety, priding
themselves on their social position and the out-
ward respectability of their lives, that Jesus dis-
covers the materials for the severest denuncia-
tions that ever came from his lips. He finds

Woes denounced upon the Pharisees. 115

these materials in that kind and form of relig-
ion which, under the guise of great fervor and
zeal for the cause of God, beneath the large
and broidered garment of a showy profession,
gets ample room and opportunity for the indul-
gence of vanity and pride, the lordly, ambitious,
despotic spirit ; in that kind and form of relig-
ion that makes so much of the outward, the in-
stitutional, the ceremonial, so little of the moral,
the spiritual, the practical, — which exalts the
letter above the spirit of the divine commands,
which, finding this old precept of Moses, ' Thou
shalt bind these commandments of the Lord for
a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as a
frontlet between thine eyes,; thought that this
command was kept by having strips of parch-
ment with passages of Scripture on them bound
upon the forehead and the arm, and fancied
that the broader the parchment scrips, the more
numerous the passages inscribed, the larger the
honor and the service rendered unto God : —
which, finding another old law of Moses, that
no unclean animal should be eaten, strained
every sort of drink carefully through a linen
cloth, lest any gnat or the smallest unclean
animalcule might be drunk : — which, meeting
with the ancient Mosaic order that a tithe of all

116 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

produce should be offered to the Lord, was not
content with presenting a tithe of the wheat,
and the barley, and the oil, the common staple
products of the land, but would give it of the
mint, and the anise, and the cumin, the small-
est garden fruits and flowers : — which invented
nice casuistical distinctions among oaths, mak-
ing out that some were binding, others not,
some were sinful, others not ; which, notwith-
standing all its punctilious attention to the mi-
nutiae of certain outward observances, all its la-
borious cleansing of the outside of the cup and
platter, was full within of extortion and excess,
— a very strange compound of very heterogen-
eous elements, distasteful to all true-hearted
men, infinitely distasteful to our Lord and Mas-
ter. We might have hoped that, with the de-
parture of that old ritualism of Judaism, with
the coming in of the simpler institute of Chris-
tianity, with the lessons and the life of our Lord
himself before us, that the temptation to and
the opportunity for such singular and such of-
fensive developments of human nature would
depart. But no ; the spirit of Pharisaism lies
deep in that nature ; — deepest where the su-
perstitious and devotional element is strong and
the moral is comparatively weak, not peculiar

Woes denounced upon the Phakisees. 117

to certain times and places, or to be seen only in
certain churches under the drapery of ecclesias-
tical ceremonialism kindred to that of the Jews.
It is to be found everywhere, under all forms
of religious observance ; where it has the least
natural aliment making all the more of what it
has, — nay more, as if soured by its meagre diet,
nowhere will you see a more odious and repul-
sive growth of it than in those very churches
which have stripped themselves the barest of
all forms and ceremonies.

2. Let us notice the insidiousness and de-
ceitfulness of that spirit of Pharisaism which in
this discourse Christ so fully exposes and so
heavily condemns. The men whom Christ had
immediately in his eye, whose hollowness and
falsity he dissects with so unsparing a hand, had
a very different opinion of themselves from that
which he expresses. They believed themselves
to be really the most religious people in their
own country, — in the world. There may have
been a few of them utter and arrant hypocrites,
who knew themselves to be mere pretenders,
with whom all the show of devotion was inten-
tionally and consciously assumed for selfish and
sinister purposes. But we should err egregi-
ously if we thought that such was the character

118 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

of the majority. They imagined themselves to
be sincere, and it was that imagination which
was at the bottom of their intense self-satisfac^
tion, their eager and ostentatious displays.
Self-deception went so far with them that they
actually believed themselves to be the natural
successors and representatives of the prophets
and righteous men of the old econonry. The
memory of their martyred forefathers was so
dear to them, that they built their tombs and
garnished their sepulchres, and said to one an-
other, ' If we had lived in those old times, we
should not have been partakers with those who
shed their blood.' Yet at this very time they
are meditating the death of Jesus, — are about
to imbrue their hands in the blood of God's own
Son. Extraordinary instance, you may say, of
self-deception. You would not think so if the
eye of Omniscience were for a moment lent, and
it was given to you to discern how many there
are presently alive — busy, bustling, pretentious
religionists, builders of prophets' tombs, gar-
nishee of martyrs' sepulchres, the readiest to
say, ' Had we lived in the days of these odious
Pharisees, we had been no partakers in their
guilt,' — who if subjected to the same kinds of
test with the Pharisees, — these tests altered ac-

Woes denounced upon the Phakisees. 119

cording to the changes that the world since
then has undergone — would do their deed over
again — in the spirit, if not in the letter, would
crucify Christ afresh. Among all the spirits
that have ever entered into and taken posses-
sion of our nature, there is not one of such self-
deceiving power as that of Pharisaism.

3. You have a striking instance brought be-
fore you in this discourse of a nation being
reckoned with not individually but collectively.
The generation in which Jesus lived had sins
enough of its own to answer for. Had there
stood against it but that one charge of having
despised, rejected, crucified the Lord, it had
been enough. But see how, in the spirit of
sublime superiority to all selfish consideration,
Jesus makes no mention here of the treatment
given to himself. He looks backward, and lo !
all the righteous blood that had been shed in
the land lifts up its cry for vengeance ! He looks
backward, and lo ! in the hand of the Great
Judge the cup of wrath is seen getting fuller
and fuller as the guilt of generation after gen-
eration is poured into it ! He looks forward,
and lo ! the men of the generation then exist-
ing are beheld pouring the last drops into that
cup, and by doing so, about to bring down ita

120 Tuesday or the Passion Week.

whole contents upon their devoted heads!
But in the brief prophecy of what remained
still to be done ere the treasured wrath of
heaven descended there is something altogether
singular. It is not a bare foretelling of the
future by a commissioned agent of heaven.
The prophet here rises far above the rank of
all who had gone before. He speaks as the
prophets' King and Lord. A greater than all
the prophets is here. ' Behold, I send unto
you prophets and wise men, and scribes.'*
Christ's feet are upon the pavement of the
earthly Temple, but he speaks as from the
Throne of Heaven. Let those who deny the
divinity of Jesus tell us with what propriety
any mortal man, — any, even the greatest of
the prophets, could have spoken as he here
does. The indirect, the incidental way in
which he speaks, deepens the impression of his
divinity. A vision of judgment is to be
revealed. As he reveals it, he almost uncon-
sciously, as we might say, realizes his own
position as the Judge. And assuming that he
is so when he tells us of that generation being
made to suffer as well for others' transgressions

*Matt.xxiii.34.

"Woes denounced upon the Pharisees. 121

as their own, what answer shall be given to
those who would challenge the principle and
rectitude of this procedure, but this, ' Shall
not the Judge of all the earth do right V All
the length that we can here go, is to point to
the thousand instances in God's ordinary provi-
dence in which the sins of fathers are visited
upon their children, and to the many instances
of human legislation and international action
grounded upon the principle that a nation is
not a set of isolated unconnected units, but a
continuous corporate body, capable of contract-
ing an obligation, and incurring. a guilt that
survives the existing generation. We do not
say that the exemplification of it elsewhere in
the arrangement of the divine providence, or
its embodiment by ourselves when we assume
the office of administrator or judge, carries with
it the explanation of such a procedure as that
announced here by Jesus Christ. We do not
say that we have light enough to offer any
sufficient vindication of it ; but most assuredly
we have not light enough to repudiate or con-
demn. Nay more, we are convinced that when
the great mystery of God's dealings with man-
kind shall stand revealed in their eternal issues,
it will be seen that our separate individual in-

122 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

terests, for weal or for woe, have been wisely
and righteously interlapped with the merit and
the guilt of others to a far larger extent than
any of us are now prepared to believe.

4. In this discourse, a phase of the charac-
ter of Christ, and in him of God, is set before
us, from which we ought not to avert our eye.
Christ's voice, as heard on earth, was not al-
ways one of gentleness and love. When occa-
sion called for it, it could speak as the thunder
speaks, in volumed terror. Never were sever-
er epithets employed, never more terrible
denunciations uttered, than those hurled at and
heaped upon the heads of the Pharisees. Yet
no mingling here of sinful human passion, of
malice or revenge, no absence even of love.
Has Jesus forgotten to be gracious ? Are ten-
derness and compassion clean gone out of that
most loving heart ? We cannot believe so for
a moment. Then let us believe that the deep,
the strong, the burning indignation that breaks
out here has a place and power of its own in
the bosom our Lord, and dwells together in
perfect harmony with the milder and gentler
attributes of his nature. Lightning lurks amid
the warm soft drops of the summer shower ; a
consuming fire may come out of the very heart

"Woes denounced upon the Phaeisees. 123

of love. Christ is the world's great Saviour ;
he is also the world's great Judge. It was as
our Saviour he came down to this earth, and
gentle and still indeed was the voice in which
that office was discharged. He did not strive,
nor cry, nor cause his voice to be heard in the
streets ; but lest we should misinterpret, and
imagine that his spirit was too soft ever to kin-
dle into wrath, his hand too gentle to do other
services than those of love, once and again, as
here, he assumes the office of the Judge, and
speaks with a startling sternness. He began
his teaching on the mountainside of Galilee ;
he closed it in the courts of the Temple at
Jerusalem. Compare the two discourses— the
Sermon on the Mount, this discourse in the
Temple : the one begins with blessings, the
other begins and ends with rebuke ; the one
pours its benedictions over the heads of the
faithful, the other its maledictions over the
heads of the faithless ; the seven woes of the
one confront the seven beatitudes of the other.
Or take for contrast Christ's farewell to his
friends, and his farewell to his enemies : the
one composed of words of comfort, closing in
that sublime intercessory prayer which he left
behind him as a type or specimen of his advo-

124 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

cacy for us in the heavenly places ; the other
composed throughout of terrible denunciations,
types and preludes of those awful judgments
which in his judicial character he shall pro-
nounce and execute upon the finally impenitent.
And what does all this teach us but that the
religion of Jesus Christ has a twofold aspect ?
It carries both the blessing and the curse in its
bosom. If here it speaks peace, there it speaks
terror ; if to some it has nothing but words of
tenderness and encouragement, to others it has
nothing but words of warning and of woe. It
stands as the pillar-cloud stood between the
Egyptians and the Israelites : with a side of
glowing brightness and a side of overshadowing
gloom. And yet, let us not fail to notice, that
after all it is not in tones of wrath that the last
accents of this farewell of our Lord to his ene-
mies fall upon our ear. The fire of righteous
indignation that burns within him cannot but
go forth. As flash after flash of the lightning
it falls upon the hypocrite and false devotee.
But under that fire the inner heart of Jesus at
last dissolves into tenderness. Pity, infinite
pity, pours her quenching tears upon it, and
with another look, and in altered tone, a look
and tone in which the compassion of the God-

Woes denounced upon the Phabisees. 125

head reveals itself, he exclaims, ' 0 Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how of-
ten would I have gathered thy children togeth-
er, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under
her wings, and ye would not !' ' I would, but
ye would not.' The willingness is all with him,
the unwillingness with us. May the very
thought of this take our unwillingness away ;
that at the last our house be not left desolate,
that it be no other than the home that he hath
prepared for all who love him.

VIII.

THE WIDOW'S MITE — CERTAIN GREEKS DESIRE
TO SEE JESUS.*

Qtaesftag.

HIS terrible denunciation of the scribes and
Pharisees having been delivered, Jesus
passes into a court of the Temple, the inner-
most to which they were admitted, called there-
fore the Court of the Women. On one side of
this court stood the thirteen large chests, with
openings shaped like trumpets, into which the
free-will offerings of the people were thrown.
Over against them Jesus seats himself, watch-
ing the passers-by. He sees many rich ap-
proach, and throw in, perhaps ostentatiously,
their large contributions, but he does not make
any comment on their gifts. At last, however,
a poor woman approaches the place oi* deposit.
Modestly, timidly, almost furtively, as if

* Mark xii. 41-44 ; Luke xxi. 1-4 ; John xii. 20-36.

The Widow's Mite. 127

ashamed of being seen, and hiding what she
gives, as all too small for public notice, she
casts her farthing in, and is in haste to depart.
See how the eye of the watcher fastens upon
this woman. She is retreating in haste to hide
herself in the crowd without, but she must not
go till other eyes than those of Jesus have also
been turned upon her. ' He calls to him his
disciples,' he bids them mark her well, and as
their eyes are all upon her,- he says to them,
1 Verily I say unto you, that this poor widow
hath cast more in than they all.'

How many were there in Jerusalem who, if
their attention had been directed to the poor
widow's act, and it had been told them that
in casting these two mites she had cast in her
all, would have condemned that act ! What
was cast into the treasury went either to the
poor or to the priests, to relief of the indigent
or the upholding of the worship of the Temple.
But were there many poorer in all the city
than the poor widow herself? Should she not
have kept the little which she had for the re-
lieving of her own wants ? As to the prierts
and the Temple, a large enough provision was
made for them by public and private charity,
without her being asked to add her trifling

128 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

contribution. Who could tell, when it came
into their hands, what these well-fed priests
would do with her two mites ? And even if
she had a better security that her donation
would be well applied, what need was there to
give what was so much to her and what was so
little to them ? How many sayings of this
kind might her act have called forth ! and for
one that might have praised, probably there
would have been ten who would have con-
demned. But other eyes than those of a mere
earthly prudence are on her, and another and
very different sentence than one of condemna-
tion is passed. Broad and deep in that poor
widow's heart had the love of the God who
was worshipped within that Temple been shed.
There, by the post of these gates, she had often
waited and worshipped, and there, in her hours
of sorrow, in that worship her burdened spirit
had got relief. She would answer to the call,
that she knew that the Lord of that Temple
had given to aid in the maintenance of its ser-
vices. It was a debt of gratitude that she
owed ; it was a privilege to take any share in
such a work. True, it was but the veriest trifle
that she could afford ; but it was willingly and
gladly given. She would not have liked that

The Widow's Mite. 12G

any of those rich people, who were throwing in
their silver and their gold as they went by,
had seen her two mites drop out of her fingers.
But there were eyes from which she could not
hide them ; and little as she thought of it, there
was one across the court sitting in judgment
upon her, who not only approved her deed, but
elevated her above all the donors of the day
She is not only the greatest giver of them all,
she has cast in more than they all together, —
more, not in money value, but in moral worth.
And what else, by giving such world-wide cir-
culation to this her act, and this his sentence
on it, did Jesus mean, than to give a world-
wide circulation, to the truth, that in his sight,
in his Father's sight, it is the motive which
gives its true character to the act ; that great-
ness in his estimate of things consists not in the
doing of great acts that every eye must see,
and that every tongue may be ready to praise,
but in doing what may be little things, — so
■small that they shall escape all human notice,
and so insignificant that there may be none to
think them worthy of any praise ; but doing
them in a great spirit, from a great and noble
and holy end ? He is not the largest giver
who, out of his abundance, and from many

130 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

mixed motives, gives to this charity or to thai;,
but he who, impelled by the pure love of God,
and the desire to help on a good object, gives
in largest relative proportion out of the surplus
that remains to him after his own and his fam-
ily's wants have been provided for.

We do not know the circumstances other-
wise of this poor widow. Let us assume that
these two mites were all she had after her per-
sonal wants had been satisfied. Let us assume
that, slender as her income may have been, yet,
like all the poor in the land of Israel, she had
some such slender income upon which she
could count. We cannot believe that if by
casting these two mites in the treasury she
actually made herself a pauper, with nothing
thereafter but the casual and uncertain charity
of others to depend on, that our Lord would
have approved of the act. Assuming, then,
that it was all, in the sense of being her all
that was left after the provision of her own
immediate wants, that she bestowed upon the
Temple treasury ; assuming also that all those
rich people who went before and who followed
her, in the first instance appropriated of their
incomes what was needful to maintain them in
the different grades of society in which they

The Widow's Mite. 131

respectively were placed ; let us ask ourselves,
— if the scale of giving on which she acted had
been universally adopted, what would the rev-
enue of that Temple have been ? We imagine
that the woman had no family ; we imagine
that she had none naturally claiming a pro-
vision at her hands ; we imagine that that
treasury of the Temple was the one great chan-
nel through which her charity flowed. It
would be wrong indeed in such a state of
things as that in the midst of which our lot is
cast, to turn her act into a precedent, — for any
one object of Christian or common charity, to
claim the entire surplus that any one, rich or
poor, among us may possess. But surely, all
due limitations and exceptions made, there is
something in the example thus held out which
it becomes us to imitate ; and we shall miss at
least one great lesson which it gives if we fail
to perceive how right a thing it is that this
burden of giving should be equally and pro-
portionally borne ; knowing that our gifts are
all accepted, not according to what a man hath
not, but according to what every man has.
The lesson which, of all others, and in all de-
partments of benevolent effort, we most need
to have impressed on us — is the duty of shar-

132 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

ing honorably and equally every burdeu that
Christianity imposes.

The time and circumstances under which the
approving verdict was passed upon the widow's
offering enhance its interest. Woe after woe,
in tones of terrible impressiveness, have pealed
like volleyed thunder over the heads of
his adversaries, and are still echoing in the
courts of the Temple. As if to show how
quickly and fully the strong emotions of right-
eous indignation have passed out of his breast,
he sits quietly down in the attitude of an unoc-
cupied observer, all trace of anger gone from
his countenance, all tones of anger from his
voice, and asks his disciples to notice the poor
widow's act.

But there was another and. still more inter-
esting exhibition of the state of our Lord's
thoughts and feelings as he took his farewell of
the Temple. It is the high prerogative of genius
to be able vividly to realize and represent the
thoughts, and sentiments, and words apppropri-
ate to all kinds of characters, in all varieties of
positions. Who that has read the pages of our
great English dramatist has not remarked how
true to nature each representation is, whether
it be monarch on the throne or clown in the

Certain Greeks Desiee to See Jesus. 133

closet, statesman, warrior, prelate, or peasant
that appears, and speaks, and acts ? It is by
the exercise of this great faculty that the per-
sonages and events of the past are reproduced
and set forth before our eye. There is one Be-
ing, however, who appeared upon the stage of
time, who stands beyond the reach of this facul-
ty ; for, be his genius what it may, who shall
put himself in the place, or think the thoughts,
or enter into the emotions of the Son of God,
as he passed through his earthly sojourn?
And yet how natural the desire to know the
thoughts awakened in his mind, the emotions
kindled in his heart, by the incidents through
which he passed, the individuals with whom he
was thrown into contact ? Here, however, im-
agination is at fault. Conscious of its incapa-
city, it reverently withdraws, from the attempt
either to conceive or to express how Jesus was
affected by the varying events of his earthly
pilgrimage. We cannot, dare not, go here be-
yond what is revealed.. And that is but little.
No reader of the Gospels can fail to have no-
ticed how seldom it is that Christ gives us any
glimpse of what was passing in the interior of
his own spirit. With all the greater interest
do we ponder over the few occasions in which

134 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

the mantle that was ordinarily so closely drawn
round its inner shrine is partially uplifted.
Such is the interest which attaches to that pas-
sage of his life which now comes under our re-
view.

As Jesus is sitting over against the treasury,
Andrew and Philip come and tell him that in
the outer court of the Gentiles certain Greeks
are standing, who have expressed a strong de-
sire to see him. Born and brought up as hea-
then men, they had been so far convinced of
the superiority of the Jewish faith, that they
were in the habit of coming up to Jerusalem to
worship there the one living and true God.
"Whether they had seen or heard much or any-
thing of Jesus before this time, what it was
which inspired them with such a strong desire
to see him now, we do not know. This may
have been their first visit to Jerusalem. Their
earliest knowledge of Christ may have been de-
rived from what they had witnessed within the
last few days. They must have heard of the
raising of Lazarus and the many miracles which
had previously been wrought. They must have
seen our Lord's triumphal entry into the city,
and noticed how the whole community had been
moved. The cleansing of the Temple must

Cebtain Geeeks Desiee to See Jesus. 135

have made a deep impression on their minds.
It was the court of the Gentiles, the very part
of the Temple appropriated to the use of that
class to which they belonged, which Jesus had
sought to cleanse from its impurities and pro-
fanations. Let us imagine that those devout
Greeks had themselves been scandalized by see-
ing the place consecrated to worship turned in-
to a common market ground, by seeing the
priesthood more eager to make money than to
win Gentiles to their faith. Here, however, is
one man, a Jew, animated by something like
the right spirit, who drives out these buyers
and sellers, whose aim and effort is that this
place be made what it was meant to be, a house
of prayer for all -nations. Who can this Jesus
be ? He calls the Temple his own house. • He
speaks of God as his own Father. The chief
priests and rulers are angry at him ; have even
put a price upon his head ; have given orders
that if any man knew where he was, he should
tell, in order that he might be taken and put to
death. Yet he walks openly in the midst ; the
people gaze on him with wonder ; the very chil-
dren hail him with hosannas as the Son of David.
Who, those strangers ask again, can this Jesus
be? In their curiosity they come to Philip, a Ga-

136 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

Mean, a native of Bethsaida, one who knows
their language, with whom they may have had
some previous acquaintance, or they come to
him because he is the one nearest them at the
time, with whom they can most readily commu-
nicate, and they say to him : ' Sir, we would see
Jesus.' Philip tells Andrew ; Philip and An-
drew, the Greeks in all likelihood following
them, tell Jesus. He has many around him.
when this message is conv^ed to him, and the
disciples and the Greeks stand waiting the re-
sult. He gives no direct or immediate answer.
He stands a moment, lost in thought, and then
breaks out into expressions, vague and dark
enough to those who listened to them at the
time, yet full of the richest meaning, and con-
veying, too, though neither the Greeks nor the
disciples nor any of those around may have
seen how it was so, one of the best answers to
the request which had just been made.

To understand this, let us remember that
Jesus knew from the beginning what was to be
the broad issue of his mission to this earth.
The words of the Father, spoken of old by the
prophet, were familiar to his ear : ' It is a light
thing that thou shouldest be my servant to re-
store the preserved of Israel. I will give thee

Certain Gkeeks Desike to See Jesus. 137

to be a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest
be my salvation to the ends of the earth : a
light to lighten the Gentiles, as well as the
glory of my people Israel.' Knowing this,
familiar with this from the beginning as the
end and object of his incarnation, one cannot
help believing that the narrowness of the
bounds within which his personal ministry was
confined, and the smallness of the results
which, during its continuance, that ministry
realized, were often, as a heavy burden press-
ing upon the Redeemer's spirit. As a son, in-
deed, he learned obedience ; he willingly sub-
mitted to the restraints laid on him ; he cheer-
fully conformed to the will of Him that sent
him, and expended.his personal labors upon the
lost sheep of the house of Israel, — but not with-
out many an inward thought of the joy set be-
fore him, of the harvest yet to be gathered in,
of the glory yet to be revealed, — thoughts kept
buried in his heart, not at first to be uttered,
for who could understand or sympathize ? But
here, at last, on the very eve of his agony and
death, these Greeks, these Gentiles, come de-
siring to see him. He hails them as the repre-
sentatives of the vast community to which
they belong. In their coming to him he sees

138 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

the first fruits of that rich harvest which the
world in all its borders was to yield. The
great future of the gospel times and ages, hid-
den from all others, brightens into its full
glory before his eye. The time, he knows, is
near, — he takes this very message from these
Greeks, as the token of its approach, — when
the mystery shall be revealed, and the middle
wall of partition between Jew and Gentile
shall be broken down, wide over all the earth
the glad tidings of salvation in his name go
forth, and men of all peoples, and nations, and
tongues, and kindreds be gathered into that
one fold, of which he is to be the Shepherd.
But between the present and this great result
there lay, now very near at. hand, his own suf-
ferings and death, — the lifting of him upon
that cross which is to serve as the great means
of gathering all men unto him.

Connecting thus, as was most natural, the
petition of the Greeks with the gathering in of
the Gentiles, and that gathering in with hia
own approaching death, Jesus answered and
said : "The hour is come that the Son of Man
should be glorified. Verily, I say unto 3tou,
Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and
die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth

Certain Greeks Desire to See Jesus. 139

forth much fruit." Take a single pickle of
seed-corn : there dwells within it the mysterious
principle of life, — the gift of the Creator, that
no man can bestow. Keep it above the
ground, preserve it carefully from the touch of
death and of corruption, it may abide for years,
retaining its own vitality ; but it so abides in
solitary unfruitfulness — no life comes out of its
life. Bury it, however, beneath the sod ; let it
pass down into what becomes to it the realm
of corruption and of death ; let it rot and die
there, then from out that death the new life
cometh — fresh, abounding, multiplying life.
So it is, and so only, that it bringeth forth
much fruit. And of the world's great spiritual
harvest Jesus is the one seed-corn. He had
the life" in himself, and might have kept it for
ever there. But to turn it into the source of
life to others he too must obey the law of life,
propagating itself and spreading abroad through
death. He too must die, that by dying he may
bring forth much fruit.

The death of the Redeemer stands by itself ;
in a manner peculiar to itself the source of
spiritual life to all united to him by faith.
And yet there is a sense, and that a most real
and important one, in which what was true of

140 Tuesday of the Passion Week. '

the head is true also of all the members. They
too must come under the operation of the great
principle and law which brings life out of
death. They too must die, as he their Saviour
died ; must take up their cross in turn, and in
self-denial and self-sacrifice bear it ; they must
have a fellowship with his sufferings ; be
planted in the likeness of his death ; be cru-
cified with Christ ; must fill up what remains
of his sufferings for his body the Church.
" For," said Jesus, immediately after having
spoken of his own death and its great issues,
"he that loveth his life shall lose it, and he
that hateth his life in this world shall keep it
unto life eternal." "If any man serve me" —
be willing to become like-minded, like-hearted
with me, look to my death as not only the
fountainhead of his own spiritual life, but the
model after which the whole temper, frame,
and spirit of his being is to be moulded, then,
added Jesus, — " let him follow me, and where
I am there shall also my servant be ; if any
man serve me, him will my Father honor."
In the quick survey of the future that now en-
gages the Saviour's thoughts, he sees beyond
his death, realizes his position as exalted to the
Father's right hand in the heavenly places —

Ceetain Geeeks Desiee to See Jesus. 141

the shame and the dishonor, the buffeting and
the scourging, the agony and the dying, ex-
changed for the glory he had with the Father
before the world was. A kindred elevation
and like honors awaited all who took up their
cross daily, and in self-denial and self-sacrifice
bore it ; sufferers with him here, they would be
glorified with him hereafter.

Such as I have thus tried to trace it was the
current of thought running through the first
utterances of Jesus, given in answer to the an-
nouncement that certain Greeks stood without,
desiring to see him. But now a sudden change
comes over the spirit of the Redeemer. His
eye closes on the crowd around ; he ceases to
think of, to speak with man ; he is alone with
the Father. A dark cloud descends and wraps
him in its folds ; he fears as he enters into this
cloud. From the midst of its thick darkness a
trembling agitated voice is heard telling of a
spirit sorely troubled within. Those of you
who have watched by the bed of the dying
must often have noticed how, as the great event
drew near, foreshaclowings of it came at mea-
sured intervals — a struggle, a faintness, a pal-
lor so like the last that you held your breath
as thinking that the spirit was about to pass.

142 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

Death often throws such shadows of itself be-
fore, and the greatest of all deaths, the death
of the Son of God, was also thus prefigured.
The agony of the garden, what was it? It
was but the spiritual anguish of the cross let
down beforehand upon the soul of the Re-
deemer. The inward agony that wrung from
the lips of the dying Jesus the bitter cry, " My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?"
was the same in source, in character, in object,
with that which forced the thrice repeated
prayer, " Father if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me." And the closing utterance of
Gethsemane, "Not my will, 0 God ; thy will
be done," is it not a softened echo of the last
and loud triumphant exclamations, "It is fin-
ished. Father, into thy hands I commit my
spirit ?" Still more striking, however, is the
likeness between what took place visibly, au-
dibly here within the Temple, and what hap-
pened two days afterwards in the solitude of
the garden. The correspondence is too close
to be overlooked. You have in each case the
struggle, the prayer, the triumph, following
each other in the same order. " My soul." said
Jesus to the three disciples as he passed into
the interior of the garden, "is exceeding sor-

Certain Greeks Desire to See Jesus. 143

rowful, even unto death." "Now," in the
hearing of the company within the Temple he
said, "Now is my soul troubled." "0 my
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from
me," is the prayer in the one case ; " Father,
save me from this hour," the prayer in the
other. And the conflict is hushed, and the
troubled spirit sinks to rest in the one case,
saying, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as
thou wilt ;" and in the other, " But for this
cause came I unto this hour ; Father, glorify
thy name."

" Then came there a voice from heaven, say-
ing, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it
again." Twice before — at the Baptism in the
Jordan, and the Transfiguration on the Mount
— the same voice had been heard. But this
third instance has more of publicity, if not of
solemnity, attending it. At the baptism there
were few present, and we may reasonably
doubt whether any but John and Jesus saw
the descending dove, and heard the voice from
heaven. At the Transfiguration there were
present only the chosen three ; but here, in
the Temple, before a listening crowd, in answer
to a public and solemn appeal, this voice gives
its crowning accrediting testimony.

1M Tuesday of the Passion Week.

This testimony given, the cloud disperses,
the divine colloquy between the Son and the
Father ceases. Christ's thoughts return to
earth, to flow once more along the channel in-
to which the application of the Greeks had led
them. First he turns aside for a moment to
correct the misapprehension of some of the
spectators. It had been here as it was on the
occasion of Paul's conversion on his way to Da-
mascus. Some had heard but a confused noise,
and would have it that it was nothing mor'e
than a common peal of thunder that had
sounded above their heads ; others had made
out that it was a voice, but not catching the
words, or not entering into their meaning,
would have it that it was an angel that in some
unknown tongue had been addressing him.
Jesus tells them that it was indeed a voice
which they had heard, and that it had spoken
not so much on his account as on theirs. Then,
taking up once more the idea which runs as a
connecting link through the whole of this pas-
sage, that the time had come for the comple-
tion of his great work, and the gathering up
of its fruits, his eye glances over the whole
realm of heathendom ; he sees that vast do-
main given over to the great usurper, the

Certain Greeks Desire to See Jesus. 145

prince of this world, the spirit of unrighteous-
ness sitting in the high places, and exercising
an unhallowed supremacy. The time had
come, however, for a world given over to
wickedness to be judged, and for the usurper,
who had so long held dominion over it, to be
cast out. But how, and by what instrument ?
Not by might nor by power ; not by bolts of
vengeance flung at the ungodly ; not by the
hand of violence laid upon the usurper, and he
dragged off with chains of iron binding him ;
no, but by another power mightier than his,
drawing men away from him, dissolving their
allegiance to him, linking them in love to God.
" And I," said Jesus, " if I be lifted up, will
draw all men unto me."

Such, as foreseen and pre-announced by our
Lord himself, was to be the effect of his cruci-
fixion. It was to clothe him with a power
over the spirits of men, unlimited in its range,
omnipotent in its influence, designed and fit-
ted to exert its benignant sway as widely as
the human family is scattered. From the time
that lie was lifted up, by his cross, its triumphs
and its attractions, by all that it so willingly
holds out for their acceptance and for their
imitation, Jesus has been bringing all men to

146 Tuesday of tee Passion Week.

hhn, — men of every age, of every country, of
every character, of every condition ; the wise
and the simple, the rich and the poor, the
honored and the despised, Jews, Greeks, Bar-
barians, Scythians, bond and free. He puts
this cross into our hands ; he bids us lift it up,
he bids us carry it abroad. Ours the outward
work of letting all men know and see who it
was that died for them on Calvary, and what
it was that by dying for them he has done.
His the inward power to work upon the heart,
and by that charm which neither space nor
time can ever weaken, to win it to peace, to
love, to holiness, to heaven.

IX.

THE PROPHECIES OF THE MOUNT.*

THE stormy collision between Christ and
the chief priests at length was over. Je-
sus, calling the twelve around him, left that
court of the Temple in which the conflict had
been carried on, not as one defeated or driven
away by his adversaries, but clearly and avow-
edly as the victor. It looks, from the two in-
cidents which followed, as if Jesus, his public
teaching in the Temple over, lingered yet a lit-
tle while reluctant to take what he knew would
be his last sight of its sacred terior. At last,
however, sadly and slowly he departs. There
was perhaps something marked and noticeable
in the earnest looks Jesus was bestowing on
the buildings. There had certainly been much
in what they had just seen and heard to excite

* Matt. xxiv. , xxv. ; Mark xiii. ; Luke xxi. 5-36.

148 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

the attention of his disciples. Those last words
of his address to the Pharisees ring heavily in
their ears, — "Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall
not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."
What house is to be left so desolate ? Is it
this very Temple in which they stand ? What
kind of desolation is to overtake that house ?
Is it indeed, as some words of their Master,
spoken long before this time, might seem to
imply, to be destroyed ? A dark foreboding
of some awful catastrophe hanging over that
sacred pile is upon their spirits ; and one of
them, giving vague expression to the common
feeling, and with some dim hope that some-
thing further, clearer, may be told, said,
" Master, see what manner of stones and what
buildings are here!" "See ye not,55 is our
Lord's reply, "all these things? verily I say
unto you, There shall not be left here one
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown
down." Distinct and unambiguous announce-
ment! One cloud of obscurity at least is
rolled away. The solid, stately, sumptuous
fabric on which all their eyes are fastened is to
perish, from its very foundation to be over-

The Prophecies of tiie Mount. 149

turned. But though this fact be thus made
certain, how many questions as to the time,
the manner, the causes, the consequences of it,
would at once arise to trouble the disciples'
mind. Their Master, however, is already on
his way to the gate which leads out to Betha-
ny, and they follow. Silent all and thought-
ful they follow him ; they descend into the
valley of Jehoshaphat, cross the Kedron, begin
the ascent of Olivet, have reached a height
which commands the city, where Jesus pauses
and sits down, — as that accurate narrator Mark
informs us, " over against the Temple." It
must have been near the very spot where, two
or three days before, Jesus had beheld the
city and wept over it, and through his tears
had seen that sad vision of Jerusalem belea-
guered, and her enemies casting a trench
around her, and compassimg her about, and
keeping her on every side, and laying her even
with the ground, and leaving not one stone
upon another. As Jesus and his disciples sat
down upon the ridge of Olivet, the eyes of all
would rest upon the sumptuous edifice before
them there, across the valley, glowing now be-
neath the beams of the setting sun. The quiet
spot, the evening hour, the serene attitude, his

150 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

words so lately spoken, all conspire to draw
the disciples' thoughts upon the dark and
doubtful future. Gently approaching him,
Peter and James and John and Andrew put
to Christ the question, " Tell us, when shall
these things be ? and what shall be the sign of
thy coming, and of the end of the world ?"

It is of the utmost importance, as throwing
light upon the whole structure and meaning of
Christ's answer, that we look into the inquiry
to which it was a response. Taking up that
inquiry with the information which we now
possess, we should say that it referred to three
distinct and separate events : — (1.) The de-
struction of the Temple ; (2.) The coming of
Christ ; (3.) The end of the world. But the
men who made that inquiry had no clear idea
of these three events being distinct and separate
from each other. They had heard their Mas-
ter, and that very recently, speak of his im-
pending sufferings and death, and of another
coming of the Son of Man, when he should be
revealed in his glory. They heard him say,
1 Verily I say unto you, there be some stand-
ing here which shall not taste death till they
see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.'
What a mass of difficulties was here for these

The Pbopheoies of the Mount. 151

men with their existing beliefs to unravel !
Christ's coming to his kingdom they had always
looked forward to as the issue speedily to be
realized, when he should ascend the throne of
Israel and rule upon the earth as earth's ac-
knowledged sovereign. But somehow, be-
tween them and that issue were interposed
those sufferings and that death the object of
which they could not comprehend. They had
always associated Christ's coming to his king-
dom with the elevation of their country to the
first place among the nations, and the restoring
and purifying of their great sanctuary at Jeru-
salem ; but now Jesus speaks of coming not
to restore but to destroy. He tells them of a
time when of all those great buildings of the
Temple not one stone should be left upon an ■
other. Was that to be at the time of his com-
ing, and was the time of his coming to be the
end of the world ? Imagining that it must be
so, and yet unable to see how it could be so,
incapable of dissociating the three events, yet
unable to harmonize what had been said about
each, they come with all their obscurity and
confusion of thought to Jesus, and they say tc
him, ' Tell us, when shall these things be ? and
what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of
the end of the world V

152 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

Look now at the reply of Jesus to this ques-
tion, as given in the 24th and 25th chapters of
St. Matthew, and ask yourselves how far did
Jesus go in clearing away the doubts or misap-
prehensions which the complex question put
to him involved. Did he at once, clearly and
unambiguously, inform his disciples that the
destruction of Jerusalem was at hand? that it
would happen within the lifetime of men then
living ? Did he, separating between different
future comings of his, some figurative, some
personal, tell them that it was to his first figu-
rative coming he had referred, when he said that
there were some of those then standing before
them who should witness it ? Did he proceed
to separate by a long interval of many centu-
ries the coming to judge Jerusalem, from his
coming to avenge his own elect, to gather them
from the four winds of heaven, and set up his
kingdom upon the earth ? or did he separate
again that personal advent at the beginning of
the millennium, from the day of the world's
final judgment, and the passing away of these
heavens and this earth ? So far from this, the
prophetic discourse of our Lord is studiously
and purposely so framed, that with no other
guidance than that which itself affords, we still

The Puophecies of the Mount. 153

might confound, as the disciples confounded,
the three advents of our Lord. With the ful-
fillment of the first part in our hands, as an
event long since gone by, we are able to mark
the separating line which divides the first ad-
vent of Christ, that day of judgment of the
Lord, from all others that are to follow. Had
we, however, stood where the apostles did, had
we had this great comprehensive draft or sketch
of the future held up to our eyes, as it was to
theirs, would it have been possible to discern
even that dividing line ? For how is this pro-
phetic picture framed ? Behind a foreground
tilled with signs and tokens of impending woes,
there rises as the first summit of a mountain
range the Lord's coming to visit Jerusalem in
his anger ; then, right over that summit,
almost on the same level, but dimmer, appear-
ing to the eye quite close to it, — the inter-
vening valley quite hid from sight — another sum-
mit is beheld, another judgment-advent of the
Lord, a second, and, as many believe even far-
ther back, yet a third. What seems, however,
especially to perplex the eye as it rests on this
prophetic picture is not only that events are
brought close together which may be — some
of which we now know are — actually distant

154 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

from each other by many centuries ; not only
are marks and tokens of these intervening
spaces wanting here, not only are all the events
of the one class described in the same way,
painted in the same colors, but each is used as
typical of those which come behind, described
accordingly in terms which appear to belong
to its successor rather than to itself; and so it
is that many readers have felt it to be impos-
sible to determine of many of the sayings of
the discourse, whether they are to be applied
to the first or second or third advent of Christ.
With these general observations, let us take
up the discourse itself. It will be found that it
divides itself into three parts, which on the
whole correspond to the three inquiries which
are virtually involved in the question of the dis-
ciples ; the first part, from the beginning of the
24th chapter to its 29th verse, being occupied
with the destruction of Jerusalem ; the second,
from the 69th verse of the 24th chapter to the
30th verse of the 25th chapter, being occupied
with the Lord's advent to establish and set up
his kingdom upon the earth ; and the third,
from the 31st verse to the end of the 25th chap-
ter, occupied with the final judgment and the
end of the world. I shall have a word or two

The Prophecies of the Mount. 155

to say hereafter as to whether we should dis-
tinguish the second of these sections in any way
from the third ; whether there shall be any
other future coming of Christ besides the one
when he shall come to close the present order
of things. Meanwhile let us turn our thoughts
to that portion,- the easiest certainly to be
understood, which sets forth the coming siege
and ruin of the holy city. When shall these
things be ? when shall Jerusalem be destroyed ?
Jesus does not satisfy the curiosity that had re-
spect alone to the date of the event, which
would like to know how many years it would
be till the ruin of their ancient city was accom-
plished, but he gives them, not one, but many
signals of its approach. False Christs were to
arise, there were to be wars and rumors of
wars, and earthquakes, in divers places, and
famine and pestilence, and persecution of them-
selves. These, however, were to be but the
beginning of sorrows ; they were to regard them
as so many tokens that the end was drawing
on. The ten verses from the 4th to the 14th
are occupied with the detail of these. All who
have access to the writings of the Jewish histo-
rian Josephus, can easily satisfy themselves how
fully and accurately all these tokens were veri-

156 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

fied during the years which lay between the as-
cension of Christ and the destruction of Jerusa-
lem.

Without referring to historic details, let me
rather ask you to notice how Christ subordi-
nates the prophetic intimations which he makes
to the instructions, warnings, consolations with
which he accompanies them. Does he speak of
false Christs appearing ? he prefaces that pro-
phecy by saying, ' Take heed that no man de-
ceive you.' Does he speak of coming wars
and rumors of wars ? he adds, ' See that ye be
not troubled.' Does he detail the sufferings to
which his own followers during that interval are
to be exposed ? he follows it up by the assur-
ance that he who shall endure to the end shall
be saved. It was not so much to prove his
prophetic power, not so much to gratify their
desire that some preintimation of the approach-
ing event should be given them as to forewarn
and forearm against the spiritual dangers tc
which they were exposed, that Jesus entered
on these details.

Even here, however, in the first section —
whose reference to the proximate event of the
destruction of Jerusalem no one can doubt —
we have instances of that double sense of the

The Pkophecies of the Mount. 157

Lord's sayings, their applying to the incident
more immediately alluded to, yet carrying
along with them an ulterior reference to the
future and kindred one with which in the broad
delineation it is conjoined. ' He that endureth
to the end shall be saved ;' the primary signifi-
cation here is, that he who, through all these
seductive influences of false prophets, through
all these wars and rumors of wars, through all
these fiery trials of persecution, should hold fast
his fidelity, would be delivered from that des-
truction which was to descend upon Jerusalem ;
the secondary signification, one which extends
to every period of the Church, and to every one
who abideth faithful unto death, holds out in
promise, the greater, the spiritual, the everlast-
ing salvation. Again, the gospel of the king-
dom shall be preached for a witness unto all na-
tions. In their primary sense these words re-
ceived their first fulfillment anterior to the de-
struction of Jerusalem. ' Their sound/ sa}rs
Paul, speaking of the first missionaries of the
cross, ' went unto all the earth, their words unto
the ends of the world.' In another epistle, he
speaks of the Gospel which the Colossians had
heard, as preached to every creature which is
under heaven. . But in a wider and more strictly

158 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

literal sense, before the final advent which the
first symbolizes, there was to be a diffusion over
all the earth of the knowledge of Christ, — the
two signs here given of Christ's corning to de-
stroy Jerusalem, a general apostasy, the love
of many waxing cold, and a widespread dis-
semination of the truth, being, as we know from
'the other parts of the discourse, the very signs
by which the second advent of our Lord is to
be preceded.

But Jesus not only mentions certain signals
by whose appearance they might be admon-
ished that the great catastrophe was drawing
on, he gives a token by which they might know
that it was at the very door. He does this in
order to dictate the course which they should
then take in order to provide for their safety.
' When ye shall see the abomination of desola-
tion spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing
where it ought not, in the holy place,' etc. In
St. Luke's Gospel it stands, ' When ye shall
see Jerusalem compassed with armies.' When
the two came into conjunction, — the outward
sign of the city being compassed about with
armies, — the inward one of some flagrant des-
ecration of the Holy Place within the Temple
being perpetrated, — they were to betake them-

The Prophecies of the Mount. 159

selves to instant flight. And so great was the
expedition they were to use, that he who was
on the house-top was not to wait to come down
by the inner stair to take anything out of the
house, but, escaping even as he was, was to
descend at once by the outer flight of stairs,
which, in Jewish houses, led from the house-
top to the street, and fly as for his life. We
cannot now say decisively what the abomina-
tion of desolation was ; doubtless it was recog-
nized by those for whose benefit Christ's words
were spoken. We know, however, that two
years before the city was invested by Yespa-
sian, a Roman army, under Cestius Gallus,
approached and invested it. It strangely
enough happened that as Titus surprised the
city at the time of the Passover, Cestius sur-
prised it at the time of the Feast of Taberna-
cles, when all the male population of Judea
was collected in the capital. As there can be
little doubt that the Hebrew converts to Chris-
tianity continued to observe the greater cere-
monies of their ancient faith up to the time of
the fall of Jerusalem, they too would be there
along with the rest. They would see Jerusa-
lem compassed with armies, and when, coinci-
dent with this, there was some desecration of

160 Tuesday op the Passion Week.

the Holy Place, they would know that the time
for their flight had come. The siege by Ces-
tius was sent as a warning to them, as the after
siege was sent as a punishment to their unbe-
lieving countrymen. It occurred in the month
of October, one of the mildest in the Jewish
year. Their flight, therefore, was not in the
winter. It has been proved that the day on
which Cestius unexpectedly, and in a panic
which never could be accounted for, suddenly
called off his troops, and entirely retreated from
the city, was a Tuesday. Their flight, there-
fore, was not upon the Sabbath. Our Saviour's
direction that they should pray that neither of
these two things should happen to them, what
was it but a prayer on his part that they should
be exposed to neither of these calamities in
their flight ? — a prayer which in mercy was
granted.

' For then shall be great tribulation, such as
was not since the beginning of the world to this
time, no, nor ever shall be.'* The history of
the siege and destruction of Jerusalem is a dark
picture of horrors, illumined by most extraordi-
nary displays of heroism. 1 do not know

* Matt. xxiv. 21.

The JPeophecies of the Mount. 1G1

whether we are to receive the words of Jesus
in describing it as if they were to be exactly
and literally verified, or whether we are to
take them, as we must take so many declara-
tions of Holy Writ, as being true not so much
in the letter as in the spirit. Certainly, how-
ever, neither before nor since have we read of
so many men — upwards, Josephus tells us, of
a million — perishing within a single city during
its siege. Nor can a parallel easily be found
to some of the horrible incidents realized within
those beleaguered walls. Take, for instance,
the description given by Dean Milman of the
effects of famine. I quote the passage, as con-
taining not merely a fulfillment of this prophecy
of Christ, but of another and still earlier pro-
phecy of Moses :

' Every kind feeling, love, respect, natural
affection, were extinct through the all-absorb-
ing want. Wives would snatch the last mor-
sel from husbands, children from parents,
mothers from children .... If a house was
closed, they supposed that eating was going
on, and they burst in and squeezed the
crumbs from the mouths and throats of those
who were swallowing them. Old men were
scourged till they surrendered the food to

162 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

which their hands clung desperately, and even
were dragged about by the hair till they gave
up what they "had. Children were seized as
they hung upon the miserable morsels they
had got, whirled around and dashed upon the
pavement. Tortures which cannot be related
with decency were employed against those who
had a loaf or a handful of barley .... The very
dead were searched as though they might con-
ceal some scrap of food. The most loathsome
and disgusting food was sold at an enormous
price. They gnawed their belts, shoes, and even
the leathern coats of their shields. Chopped
hay and shoots of trees sold at high prices.
Yet what were all these horrors to that which
followed ? There was a woman of Persea, from
the village of Bethezob, Mary the daughter of
Eleazer. She possessed considerable wealth
when she took refuge in the city. Day after
day she had been plundered by the robbers
whom she had provoked by her bitter impreca-
tions. No one, however, would mercifully put
an end to her misery, and, her mind maddened
with wrong, her body preyed upon by famine,
she wildly resolved on an expedient which
might gratify at once her vengeance and her
hunger. She had an infant that was vainly

The Peophecies op the Mount, 163

endeavoring to obtain some moisture from her
dry bosom. She seized it, cooked it, ate one
half and set the other half aside. The smoke
and smell of food quickly reached the robbers ;
they forced her door, and with horrible threats
commanded her to give up what she had been
feasting on. She replied with horrible indiffer-
ence that she had carefully reserved for her
good friends a part of her meal. She uncovered
the remains of her child. The savage men
stood speechless, at which she cried out with a
shrill voice, " Eat, for I have eaten ; be not
more delicate than a woman, more tender-
hearted than a mother, or if ye are too religious
to touch such food, I have eaten half already,
leave me the rest." They retired pale, and
trembling with horror. The stoiy spread ra-
pidly through the city, and reached the Roman
camp, where it was first heard with incredulity,
afterwards with the deepest commiseration. How
dreadfully must the words of Moses have forced
themselves upon the minds of all those Jews who
were not entirely unread in their holy writings :
"The tender and delicate woman among you,
who would not adventure the sole of her foot
upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness,
her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her

164 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

bosom, and toward her son, and toward hei
daughter, and toward her young one that com-
eth out from between her feet, and toward her
children which she shall bear ; for she shall eat
them for want of all things secretly, in the siege
and straitness wherewith thine enemy shall dis-
tress thee in thy gates."

Such were the horrors from witnessing and
sharing in which it was the benevolent inten-
tion of our Lord, by these prophecies, warn-
ings,, and directions, to shield the faithful few
who should bear ms name and profess his re-
ligion in the midst of their unbelieving country-
men. The care and foresight of their divine
Master thus placed them on an eminence
whence they might discern beforehand the
gathering of the great storm, might quietly
watch its gradual advances, and ere it burst
upon their heads find safety in a timely flight.
Nor was the solicitude of the Saviour expressed
in vain. It has been a tradition of the Church
from the earliest ages that not a single Chris-
tian Jew perished in the siege of Jerusalem.
While we turn therefore to this discourse of
our Redeemer, as presenting so striking a mon-
ument of his prescience, we turn to it with still
greater pleasure as presenting a monument of

The Beophecies of the Mount. 165

that affectionate, foreseeing, providing love he
he bears to all his faithful followers. Neither
shall any of these his little ones perish ; for
them too, when straits and dangers press them
round, the way of escape shall be opened.
They shall lift up their eyes to the hills, whence
cometh their aid. They shall dwell on high,
and their place of defence shall be the munition
of rocks.

X.

THE PROPHECIES OF THE MOUNT.*

bursting.

• npELL us,' said his disciples to Jesus as
-*- they sat with him on the mount, ' when
shall these things be ? and what shall be the
sign of thy coming, and of the end of the
world ?' Imagining that they would be nearly,
if not altogether contemporaneous, they mixed
up all the three events : the destruction of
Jerusalem, the coming of Christ in his kingdom
and glory, and the end of the world. How
easy it had been for Christ to have corrected
their errors both as to events and dates, to
have told them plainly and explicitly that the
destruction of Jerusalem was to precede by
many centuries his second coming and the end
of the world. Instead of this he leaves their
errors uncorrected, allows the confusion that

* Matt. xsiv. 29-44 ; Mark xiii. 25-37 ; Luke xxi. 25-3G.

The Prophecies of the Mount. 167

was in their minds to remain. Nay more, in
his reply he so speaks of his coming to jndge
the world as to make it impossible for his dis-
ciples at the time, and in the position they then
occupied, to perceive that more than one such
coming on his part was spoken of. With the
siege and overthrow of Jerusalem behind us as
an event long since gone by, we can under-
stand the first part of our Lord's prophetic dis-
course delivered upon this occasion, and give
to it its obvious and only possible application,
by separating that first coming of Christ from
all other after advents. But we stand to the
remainder of the discourse very much in the
same position in which the disciples at first
stood to the whole of it. And there is a ques-
tion about that remainder which we now, I
apprehend, are as little able yet to solve as the
disciples upon Mount Olivet were able to con-
dude, from what Christ then said, that the
destruction of Jerusalem was nigh at hand,
but that an interval of centuries stretched out
between it and the next great coming of their
Lord.

The question to which I refer is this : Is there
indicated in the yet unfulfilled part of this pro-
phecy a middle coming of Christ, — to be distin-

168 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

guished, on the one hand, from his coming to
destroy Jerusalem, and to be equally distin-
guished, on the other, from his coming at the
close of the present economy of things to judge
the world ? Many of our ablest expositors of
Holy Writ believe that not only are traces to be
discovered here of such an intermediate advent
ushering in the millennial reign, but that 3011
cannot read this discourse consecutively and in-
telligently without discerning and acknowledg-
ing it. Let me refer to one or two of the proofs
which this portion of Scripture, when compared
with other parts of the prophetical writings, is
supposed to supply in evidence of a coming of
Christ anterior to and quite separate from his
final coming to judge the world. In the 29th
verse of the 24th chapter of St. Matthew's Gos-
pel, certain premonitory signals of an advent
of the Lord are given. The sun is to be dark-
ened, the moon is not to give her light, the
stars are to fall from heaven, and the powers
of the heavens are to be shaken. The advo-
cates of the personal and premillennial advent of
our Lord think they can demonstrate that, ac-
cording to the structure and style of language
adopted in the prophetic Scriptures, these are
symbolic descriptions of great commotions,

The PnorHECiES of the Mount. 109

changes, and revolutions, political and ecclesi-
astical, which are to happen on the earth.
Other Scriptures about which there is less am-
biguity of meaning represent these as preceding
the setting up of the visible, the millennial
kingdom of our Lord on earth, an event care-
fully to be distinguished from the final judg-
ment advent. As the national and religious
catastrophes here symbolized are spoken of in
those other passages as taking place at some
intermediate point along the line that stretches
out into the future, and not at nor immediately
near the end of that line, so it is affirmed and
believed that the coming of the Lord spoken of
in the 30th, 31st, and immediately following
verses of the 24th chapter of St. Matthew's
Gospel, connected as it is with these catastro-
phes as its immediate precursors, cannot be the
one with which the present state of things is
finally to be wound up.

Again, this coming of the Lord is said to be
for the purpose, not of gathering all nations be-
fore him, but of gathering his own elect out of
all the nations, from the four winds, from one
end of heaven to the other. In this gathering
two are to be working in one field — the one is
to be taken, the other left ; two are to be

170 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

grinding at one mill — the one is to be taken,
the other left. The field then and the one
reaper, the mill and the one grinder, are they
not to be left, it is asked, as they were before ?
and is not this a description that applies far
more naturally and truthfully to such a separa-
tion as would take place at the erection of the
millennial kingdom than to the separation of
the judgment-day ?

It is admitted that these and all the other
like traces to be met here of a distinction be-
tween the second and third advents of our Lord
are obscure ; but then we are reminded that
this whole prophecy is constructed upon the
principle of so blending together the events
that it covers, and making them so overlap and
run into one another, that a broader and more
marked line of separation is not to be looked
for. It is difficult for eyes untrained to the
survey of mountainous districts to detect the
line that separates a distant range of hills from
a higher one lying immediately behind it. As
difficult, it is alleged, for an eye unpractised in
the survey of the perspective of prophecy, as
presented in the pages of the Bible, to detect
that line which separates the second from the
third coming of our Lord. Nevertheless, the

The Prophecies of the Mount. 171

quick-sighted and well-trained eye may in both
cases be satisfied that it is a double and not a
single object that is before it. In justice, be-
sides, to the advocates of the premillennial ad-
vent, it must be added that the Scripture now
before us is not the one upon which they
reiy as supplying anything like distinct or pos-
itive proof of such an advent. It would cer-
tainly need something much more definite than
anything which meets us here to warrant the
belief that such an advent is approaching.
But if elsewhere in the Bible such positive
proof exists, then it is alleged that the render-
ing of this prophetic discourse which represents
it as portraying in regular sequence three judg-
ment-comings of the Lord, opens up its mean-
ing more fully, and gives greater order, con-
sistency, and harmony to it, as a whole, than
any other explanation supplies.

It may be so ; we are certainly not prepared
to affirm or attempt to prove the opposite. In
order, however, to arrive at any satisfactory
conclusion on the subject, to pass a judgment
on it entitled to any weight, one would require
to have studied thoroughly and patiently the
whole circle of the prophetic writings, to have
made himself master of the peculiar kind of Ian-

172 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

guage, figurative and symbolical, which is there
employed, and in particular to have candidly
weighed and balanced the strangely conflicting
testimonies that have been adduced in favor of
and against the idea of a personal and premil-
lennial advent of the Redeemer. It so hap-
pens, however, that among those who have
made this province of unfulfilled prophecy their
peculiar study, the most various and the most
discordant opinions prevail. They differ not
only in their interpretation of individual pro-
phecies, but in the systems or methods of in-
terpretation that they employ. For some this
region of Biblical study has had a strange fasci-
nation, and once drawn into it there appears to
be a great difficulty in getting out again. Per-
haps the very dimness and doubtfulness that be-
Long to it constitute one of its attractions. The
lights are but few and straggling and obscure.
Yet each new entrant fancies he has found the
clue that leads through the labyrinth, and with
a confidence proportioned to the difficulties he
imagines he has overcome, would persuade us
to accompany him. Instead of inclining us the
more to enter, the veiy number and force of
these conflicting invitations serve rather to
repel. We become afraid of getting beneath a

The Prophecies of the Mount. 17o

spell that somehow or other operates so power-
fully, so engrossingly, upon all who yield them-
selves to its influence.

Apart, however, from any such timidity
(which would be censurable if the questions
raised were ones that could be settled), I cannot
think that there are sufficient materials in our
hands for arriving at any clear and definite con-
clusion as to the time and the manner of the
yet future advents of Christ. Nay more, I am
convinced that it was never meant by the framer
of the prophecies regarding them that any dis-
tinct vision of the future should, by help of
them, be obtained by us. They are couched in
the language peculiar to prophecy, of which this
is a distinctive feature, — that you cannot, by
mere inspection, positively say whether each and
every announcement is to be taken literally or
figuratively ; and, if figuratively, how it is to
be fulfilled. It is so far true that the part already
accomplished does put into our hand a ke}r, by
help of which the part yet unaccomplished may
be partially understood. It is, however, but a
little way that we can be thus helped on ; for
the prophecies are not framed throughout after
one uniform mould or pattern, so that if you
can unlock one portion, you can unlock the

174 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

whole. There is such a variety of construction
in the different parts that much must remain
of double or doubtful import, till the interpret-
ing event occurs. It has been so with all that
section of the prophetic writings of which the
fulfillments are already before our eyes. It
must be so with all that lies over to be accom-
plished in the future. Who then shall tell us
beforehand what is to be taken literally and
what figuratively ? In stating their case, the
advocates on either side, for and against the
premillennial advent, adduce certain passages
which, taken as plain historic statements of what
is hereafter to occur in the history of our globe,
appear undoubtedly to prove what they are ad-
duced to substantiate. But taken in the same
way, passages are quoted on the other side
which are in open conflict with these. The
way in which either party attempts to remove
the discordance is to assign a figurative sense to
announcements which are at variance with
those which they adopt as plain and simple nar-
ratives of what is to happen. All cannot be
taken literally, neither can all be taken figura-
tively, without jars and discords ; and take
which side you may, it will be found that there
are passages in such apparent and direct opposi-

The Prophecies of the Mount. 175

tion to your conclusions, that you have to do vio-
lence to your own method of interpreting the
others in order to get rid of their opposition.
This is so unsatisfactory that on the whole we
are not only disposed to hold our judgment in
this matter in suspense, to wait till the event
supplies the explanation, but we are inclined
to believe that the obscurities and difficulties
which now stand in the way of anything like a
minute interpretation of the prophecies before-
hand were intentionally, and of set purpose,
thrown around them by their utterer, that
while there was enough to awaken inquiry and
kindle hope, there might not be enough to en-
able any one to draw out a chronological chart
of the future, or announce beforehand the exact
dates of any of the great occurrences foretold.
More than once our Saviour said to the disci-
ples— and in so saying did he not teach us
the chief use of prophecy ? — ' I have told
you before it come to pass, that when it is
come to pass, ye might believe.'* And did he
not, in the very midst of his foretellings of his
own second coming, interject the saying : ' But
of that day and hour knoweth no man ; no,

* John xiv. 29.

176 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

not the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but

my Father only?' Was the man Christ Jesus

in the days of his humiliation himself kept in

ignorance of that clay and hour ? It may have

been so. As in childhood he grew in wisdom,

knowing things this year that he had not known

the vear before, so in manhood revelations of
•j •

the spiritual world may have been gradually
communicated, and the knowledge of that day
and hour kept in reserve, — kept in the Father's
own hand till after his death and resurrection.
Or it may have been, that though personally
he knew, it was a knowledge not to be com-
municated. Anyhow, that day and hour were
to have a cloud of obscurity thrown over them
which neither men nor angels were to be per-
mitted to see through.

But 'with all the obscurity thus intentionally
thrown around the day and the hour, let us
not forget that no obscurity whatever, no un-
certainty whatever, hangs around the great
event itself ; that the same Jesus whom the
clouds received out of the apostles' sight, as
they gazed up after him into heaven, shall come
again the second time without sin unto salva-
tion. Putting all intervening comings out of
sight, we know that he shall come at the end

The PiiorHEcrEs of tee Mount. 177

of the world, and we know that our death is
virtually the end of the world to each of us.
In all that future which lies before us, these
are the only two events of which we are abso-
lutely certain : our own approaching death,
our Lord's approaching advent. Our faith in
the certainty of the one rests on the uniformity
of nature ; our faith in the other on the sure
testimony of our Lord himself. — a testimony
that we put above the other, for he says,
' Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my
words shall not pass away.' We must all die,
and we must all appear before the judgment-
seat of Christ. Our eyes must close forever on
this present scene ; our eyes must open to the
scene of Jesus Christ upon this earth as our
great Judge. The same double feature be-
longs to both : absolute certainty as to the
event, entire uncertainty as to the time. We
may die to-morrow ; we may not die till many
years hence. Christ may come to-morrow ;
may not come till many centuries hence. One
might have expected that with all thoughtful
men who believed themselves to be immortal,
who felt themselves to be sinful and accounta-
ble, this double feature of the two events — ■
events charged with such immeasurably im-

178 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

portant issues, — would have stimulated to con-
stant watchfulness, would have intensified so-
licitude, would have served to keep us humble,
keep us earnest, keep us faithful. But alas for
the thoughtless, careless, unbelieving spirit
that is in us : we make the very things, so
fitted and intended to work in us these salutary
effects, minister to indifference and unconcern.
All acknowledge that we must die soon. It is
the common fate, we say, and put the thought
of death away. We know not what a day nor an
hour may bring forth, — we are absolutely uncer-
tain whether our next step shall fall here upon
the solid earth, or there in the viewless eternity.
We turn the very uncertainty into an argument
for delay, and postpone preparation till the time
for it may be gone. The truth is, that we natur-
ally live here under a terrible tyranny — the tyr-
anny of the present, the sensible, the temporal ; a
tyranny but little felt by those who give them-
selves up willingly and wholly to its power.
But. felt or unfelt, acknowledged or unac-
knowledged, it is one which must be met, and
be overcome, if we would share the Christian
character on earth or rise to the Christian
blessedness in heaven. The future must carry
it over the present ; the unseen over the seen ;

The Prophecies of the Mount. 179

the eternal over the temporal. Here lies the
trial and here lies the triumph of the faith that
is in Jesus Christ ; for who is he that overcom-
eth, but he that believeth that Jesus is the
Christ ? and this is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith — faith in the unseen
Saviour ; faith in his having lived and died for
us on earth ; faith in his having passed into
the heavens, appearing there in God's presence
for us ; faith in his future coming to take us to
himself. By watchfulness, by prayer, by all
good fidelity to our absent Lord, let us nourish
this vital principle of faith within us ; so that
when at last, whether it be through his messen-
ger death, or through the signals of his own
personal appearance, it is said to us, 'Behold
he cometh !' the ready answer of our spirit
may be, ' Even so, come, Lord Jesus !'

XI.

THE PARABLE OF THE TEN VIRGINS.*

TWO great duties lay on those to whom our
Lord's prophecies as to his future advents
were addressed, — watchfulness and diligence.
These duties he proceeded to illustrate and
enforce in two parables to which a peculiar
interest attaches, as spoken at such a time and
to such a audience. The first of the two para-
bles was that of the Ten Virgins.

Among the Jews the marriage ceremony
was always celebrated at nightfall, and the
marriage supper was given in the house of the
bridegroom, and not in that of the bride. The
bridegroom, accompanied by a select number
of companions, his friends, goes to the house of
the bride, to conduct her thence to her new
home. The bride, with a corresponding attend-
ance of companions, awaits his arrival, and

* Matt. xxv. 1-13.

The Pauable or the Ten Virgins. 181

then, the two bands united, the bridal proces-
sion moves on to the dwelling where the bridal
feast is prepared. The ten virgins spoken of
in the parable are friends of the bride, and are
waiting, either at her house, or some suitable
place by the way, for the announcement of the
bridegroom's coming, that they may join the
marriage procession, go forward with it, and
sit down at the provided feast. All the ten
have lamps. This in every event was neces-
sary, as it was only by lamp -light or torch-light
that the procession could move on. But these
lamps of the ten virgins were not in all likeli-
hood their own, nor carried by them only for
the light they were to yield. As it was cus-
tomary to provide wedding garments, so was it
to provide wedding lamps, — such lamps of
themselves marking out those that bore them
as invited guests. Each of the ten virgins of
the parable has got such an invitation to appear
on this occasion as an attendant on the bride
and has accepted it, and each holds in her hand
the symbol of her character and office. Very
likely the lamps were all of one material and
pattern. Very likely the ten bearers of these
were all dressed alike, and that, looking at them
as they took up together their appointed post,

182 Tuesday of tee Passion Week.

you might have seen but little if any difference
in their outward appearance or equipment.
Yet there was a great, and, as it proved, a rad-
ical, a vital difference between them. Five of
them were wise and five were foolish. The
wise showed their wisdom in this, that they
provided beforehand for a contingency which,
however unlikely, they foresaw might possibly
occur. The lamp furnished to them had quite
enough of oil in it to last all the time that it
was thought it would be needed. There was
more than enough oil in it to carry the bearers
from the one house to the other ; and had all
gone as it Was at first arranged — had the bride-
groom come at the usual, the set time — the
marriage lamp, with the ordinary supply of oil
that it contained, wTould have been sufficient.
But to the five wrise virgins the idea had
occurred that it was at least within the bounds
of possibility that a delay in the bridegroom's
coming might take place. Some unforeseen
accident might occur, some unthought-of hin-
drance be thrown before him on his way. To
be prepared for such delay in case it should
occur, they took with them other separate ves-
sels beside their lamps,* containing a supply

* Matt. xxv. 44.

The Parable of the Ten Virgins. 183

of oil in reserve, upon which they might draw
in the event of what was in the lamp itself be-
ing all consumed. The foolish virgins showed
their folly in this, that they were quite satisfied
with the provision of oil made for them by
their inviters, and never thought of supple-
menting it by any additional provision of their
own. Perhaps the idea of a delay in the
bridegroom's coming never occurred to them.
It was a thing that but rarely happened. The
idea of it would not naturally or spontaneously
arise. It would do so only to those who gave
themselves purposely and deliberately to think
over beforehand all that might happen, in order
to be provided for it. Even if the possibility
of some delay had occurred or been suggested
to these foolish virgins, they would have satis-
fied themselves with thinking that it never
could be so long as to burn out all the oil
which their lamps contained. They were
quite sure that all would go right ; that the
bridegroom would come at the right time ;
they were all too eager about the meeting, and
the march, and the spread-out banquet, to allow
their minds to be troubled with calculating all
the possible evil's that might occur, and how
they could be most effectually guarded against.

184 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

But they were mistaken in their anticipations.
' The bridegroom tarried.' Taking the par-
able as a prophetical allegory, this is one of
the many hints given by our Lord, even to the
first disciples, that his second coming might
possibly be deferred longer than they thought.
He would not tell them how long ; he would
say nothing that should absolutely and wholly
preclude the idea of his speedy advent, his
coming at any time, to any generation of the
living ; but yet he would not have them so
count upon «his coming being at hand, as to
make no preparation for his absence being
prolonged, as to commit that species of foily
chargeable upon the five foolish virgins.

And ' while the bridegroom tarried, they all
slumbered and slept/ — the wise and the foolish
alike. Perhaps there may be a prophetic
glance towards, that which shall be the condi-
tion of the world at the time of Christ's second
coming — to the general surprise with which
that event shall burst upon a slumbering unex-
pectant earth. Whatever secondary allusion
of this kind it may carry with it, you will no-
tice that this slumbering and sleeping of all is
not only what might naturally have been ex-
pected under the circumstances, but what is

The Parable of the Ten Vhigins. 185

necessary to lead the story on to the contem-
jDlated issue. The delay had been longer than
any one could have imagined. The bridegroom
should have been there soon after the darkness
had fallen. At midnight, had the set and com-
mon time been kept, not only would the pro-
cession have been all over, but the feast nearly
finished. It had been with all the virgins a
busy day, getting all things ready for so great
an occasion. Was it wonderful that when,
hour after hour, there was no signal of the ap-
proach, tired nature should claim her due,
their excited spirits should fail and flag, their
eyes get heavy, and that they should all slum-
ber and sleep ? Had there been no such sleep-
ing, had all kept awake throughout, the fool-
ish virgins, by the gradual consumption of the
oil within their lamps, perhaps by noticing also
and reflecting on the provision in the separate
vessels that their companions had made, would
have become timeously aware of the dange'i
that was at hand, and might have provided
against it. On the other hand, had it been the
foolish only who slept, and while they slept
had the wise been watching at their side, we
could not well have excused them if, when the
foolish awakened, they had charged their com-

186 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

panions with great unkindness in having suf-
fered them to sleep on, when they must have
seen the catastrophe that was impending. We
are disposed, therefore, to regard this incident
as thrown in, rather in order to conduct the
story to its proper close, than as having any
distinct and peculiar symbolic signification of
its own.

At midnight the cry came : ' Behold, the
bridegroom cometh ; go ye out to meet him.'
This cry rouses all the sleepers ; all is haste
and bustle now, as if there were an eagerness
to make up for the previous delay. As they
start up from their sleep, the ten virgins all
see that their lamps, which they eagerly grasp,
are just dying out. With the wise it is a quick
and easy thing to clear and cleanse the wick,
and to pour in a fresh supply out of their
auxiliary vessels. A minute or two so spent,
and their lamps are burning as brilliantly as at
the first. Not so with the foolish virgins.
They look despairingly at their fading lights.
They have no fresh oil to feed their flame.
The only resource in their extremity is to ap-
ply, in all the eagerness and impatience of des-
pair, to their companions. ' Give us of your
oil, for our lamps are gone out.' But the

The Parable of the Ten Virgins. 187

wise had been economic as they had been fore-
seeing. They had enough for themselves, but
no such superabundance that they could safely
and prudently supply their neighbors. ' Not
so ; lest there be not enough for us and you :
but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for
yourselves.' It was the only alternative left.
But, alas ! it failed ; for while they were away
beating up the oil-sellers, and trying to make a
speedy purchase, the bridegroom came ; the
five that were ready passed on with him in the
procession, went in with him to the marriage,
and the door was shut.

The ten virgins of the parable represent so
many of the professed disciples of our Lord.
Their common equipment, and their common
attitude, — all of them with marriage lamps in
their hands, standing waiting the bridegroom's
coming, — tell us of that prepared and waiting
posture in which all who call themselves by the
name of Christ are or ought to be found, as
those who are looking for the coming and
glorious appearing of the great God, and our
Saviour Jesus Christ.

It would, however, be unjust to this parable.
and it would involve us speedily in inextricable
difficulties of interpretation, if we either took

188 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

the ten virgins as representing the whole col-
lective body of the visible Church, or took the
difference of conduct here displayed, and the
difference of destiny to which it led — the final
separation of the five wise and five foolish — as
tjrpical of those two companies which are to
stand, the one on the right hand and the other
on the left of their great Judge. Christ's ob-
ject here is much more limited. He is urging
throughout this part of his discourse the duty
of watchfulness with regard to his approaching
advent ; and in this parable it is one form or
kind of that watchfulness which he desires to
inculcate. He does this by showing in an illus-
trative instance what special benefit it may be
to him who practices it, and what painfu? ton-
sequences the absence of it may entail. The
kind of watchfulness here so strikingly pressed
upon our regards, and emblematically exhibited
in the conduct of five of the ten virgins, is pru-
dence, that reflective forethought, which busies
itself in providing beforehand for emergencies
that may possibly arise ; the same virtue, trans-
ferred to spiritual things, which distinguishes
the wise and the prudent of this world, who
profitably spend many an hour in conjecturing
what possible contingencies as to their earthly

The Paeable of the Ten Viegins. 189

affairs may arise, and in contriving and arrang-
ing how each, if it do happen, should be met.
Among the children of the kingdom, the
wise and the prudent are they who, having been
called to that marriage-supper of the Lamb, and
having received the gracious invitation to sit
down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in
the kingdom of heaven, prize the invitation so
highly, and are so anxious that nothing should
defraud them of the eternal blessedness to which
it points, that they give themselves with all dili-
gence to the consideration of all the possible risks
that might come in the way of its finally being
made good to them, and to the best methods
of guarding against them should they occur.
They look beyond the present, they anticipate
evil before it comes, they strive to secure them-
selves against surprise, to stand forearmed to
meet each enemy. Opposed to them, and an-
swering to the foolish virgins of this para-
ble, are those thoughtless disciples, who, satis-
fied with having got the invitation, and with
being ranked among the number of the invited,
foresee no danger, take no precaution, and
make no provision against it. We do not doubt
that, underlying that distinction between such
wisdom and such folly, which it is the special

ISO Tuesday of the Passion Week.

and exclusive design of the parable to show
forth, there is another broader, deeper, and
more radical distinction, — even that which sepa-
rates the nominal from the real, the false from
the true professor of Christianity. You will
soon find, however, (as numberless interpreters
have done), that if you make that broader and
deeper distinction, the one here set forth, you
will not be able, except by the use of great and
unseemly violence, to make the story tally with
the interpretation. A lamp is about as good
an emblem of visible Christianity as one could
wish, and so it is very natural to regard the ten
lamp-bearers of the parable as standing as rep-
resentatives of the entire visible Church ; and
the oil which feeds the lamp is also an apt em-
blem of that special quickening grace of God's
Spirit (frequently in the Bible spoken of as an
anointing with oil), the infusion of which into
the heart makes the true Christian to differ
from the mere nominal professor. But if that
were the difference intended to be symbol-
ized here by the lamp and the oil, it ought to
be a lamp without any oil, or a lamp with a
different kind of oil in it," which represented the
mere nominal profession, the show without the
wibstance of true piety. But not only are the

The Parable of the Ten Virgins. 191

lamps of all the ten virgins alike, they are all
filled at first, and filled with the same kind of
oil, and burn with the same kind of flame. It
is not for bringing with them oil-less, lightless
lamps, it is not for filling them with some spuri-
ous kind of liquid, sending up only smoke and
stench instead of the pure and lambent flame,
that the foolish virgins suffer so great a loss.
It is simply and solely for not having a sufficient
supply of the oil laid up beforehand. If, not-
withstanding the difficulty which stands in the
way of such interpretation arising from the fact
that the foolish as well as the wise have some
oil in their lamps, we still cling to the idea—
which it is difficult for us to discard, it is so just
and so pleasing — that this oil does represent the
grace of the Holy Spirit, would not the fair and
indeed only conclusion from this parable be,
that there is a certain equal measure of this
grace bestowed at first on all alike, such as
Romanists believed to be bestowed at baptism,
and that the difference between the lost and
saved, between true and false Christians, hinges
not on the kind but on the quantity of the grac- ■
possessed, on the one laying up a separate and
sufficient stock beforehand, on the other ne-
glecting to do so? But even were we pre-

192 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

pared for such a view of the parable as would
involve such consequences, where could the
spiritual parallel be found to the separate ves-
sels in which the reserve supply is treasured ?

Instead then of taking the oil as an emblem
of the Spirit's regenerating grace, and the lamp
as an emblem of the outward form or profes-
sion of discipleship, and then trying to give a
correspondent spiritual meaning to the differ-
ent incidents of the story, and to make the dif-
ference finally brought out between the wise
and the foolish virgins tally with the difference
between all those into whose hearts the heav-
enly grace has come, and all in whom it is
wanting, — is it not wiser and better here, as
in the interpretation of so many of our Lord's
parables, to confine the parable within its own
proper bounds, and, looking at its broad and
general object, to take it as designed to impress
upon our hearts the great need of a wise and
watchful forethought, the great danger to which
the want of this forethought exposes, the sad
and awful issues to which it may conduct ?

Let us return now to the parable, and take
up the closing incidents about the marriage, as
to which there can be no uncertainty. ' The
bridegroom came ; and they that were ready

The Parable pf the Ten Virgins. 193

went in with him to the marriage.' The future,
the everlasting blessedness in store for all true
followers of Christ, is spoken of here, as so fre-
quently elsewhere, as a royal banquet or feast.
' Blessed are they which are called unto the
marriage supper of the Lamb.' Scene of unri-
valled glory, of exhaustless joy ; rich and rare
the food provided for the guests in the great
banqueting-hall of immortality ! Other viands
at other feasts soon pall on the sated sense ;
but for those viands upon which the spirits of
the blessed shall for evermore be nourished up
into a growing likeness unto God, the appetite
shall ever grow quicker the more that is parta-
ken, and the relish be ever the more intense.
The companionship at other festivals finally
wearies ; sooner or later we begin to desire
that it should close ; but in the hallowed
unions and fellowships that shall be there, new
sources of interest, new springs of delight shall
be ever opening, each coming to know the
other better, and each fresh access of knowl-
edge bringing fresh access of love, and confi-
dence, and joy. Other feasts are broken up,
and sad and dreary is the hall where hundreds
met in buoyant joy, when, the guests all gone,
the lights grow dim, and darkness and loneli-

194 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

ness take the place of the bright smile and
ringing laugh. But that marriage supper of
the Lamb shall know no breaking up, its tables
shall never be withdrawn, its companionship
shall never end.

' They that were ready went in : and the
door was shut? What a surprise, what a dis-
appointment, the five foolish virgins must have
met with when they came and found that
already the bridal party had entered, the bridal
supper had commenced, and that the door was
closed against their entrance ! They had been
invited to this marriage feast, and they had
accepted this invitation, as special friends of
the bride. The idea of their being excluded
from the banquet had never entered into their
minds, no, not even after their lamps had gone
out. True, they had not taken the same pre-
caution with their wiser companions, but who
could have predicted so tedious a delay ? True,
they had not been able to join the procession
at the first, but now they have got fresh oil,
and their lamps are burning as brightly as at
first. The door is closed against them — surely
by inadvertence ; it had not been perceived
that they still were wanting to complete the
company. They knock, the door opens not j

The Parable of the Ten Virgins. 195

they hear the bridegroom's own voice within,
the very voice of their inviter. With an eager-
ness in which fear begins to mingle, they cry
out, ' Lord, Lord, open to us.' The only
answer they get is, ' Verily, I know you not ;'
an answer which too plainly tells them that
within that joyous dwelling they never shall
set foot.

The warning here strikes home upon us all.
We too have heard the invitation of our Sa-
viour, and outwardly have accepted it. Our
Christianity may be such as shall stand well
enough the scrutiny of our neighbors, and as
may open to us without any right of challenge
admission to the table of communion. But how
many are there among such professors of Chris-
tianity for whom a surprise as unexpected and
as terrible is in reserve as met those foolish
virgins ! The man who never fears that it may
be so with him at the last, who can hear about
the door of heaven being shut against those
who, up to the last, expected to get in, and no
trembling apprehension come upon his spirit
that he himself may be among that number, is
the very man in whose person that terrible catas-
trophe is most likely to be realized. When we
know that there is so great a possibility, nay,

196 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

we may say, so great a probability of self-de-
ception ; when we believe that so many have
practised that self-deception on themselves
throughout life, and never have awakened from
its illusions till they stood before that door of
heaven and found it closed against them for-
ever ; — how diligent in self-scrutiny should
each of us now be ; how anxious that he pos-
sess not the name only, but the disposition,
the character, the habits, the conduct of a true
follower of Jesus Christ ! Let us apply then
to ourselves those most impressive words of
Christ, — ' Not every one that saith to me Lord,
Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven,
but he that doeth the will of my Father that
is in heaven. Many shall say to me in that
clay, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in
thy name ? and in thy name have cast out
devils ? and in thy name done many wonderful
works ? And then will I profess unto them, I
never knew you : depart from me, ye that
work iniquity.'

But that door which Christ himself here tells
us will be closed at last against so many, is it
not now open unto all ? Yes. It stands be-
fore us, invitingly near, most easy of access,
with this blessed inscription written over it, in

The Pakable of the Ten Yhigins. 197

characters so large that he who runs may read :
' Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.'
How different in this respect from those other
doors at which you see so many of our race
stand knocking, — the doors that lead to wealth,
or fame, or ease and pleasure ! These doors
stand so far back, away from where the multi-
tude are naturally standing, that many, in the
rush and throng and pressure never get near
them, though they toil to do so all their lives.
Close in upon and around each of them what
crowds are gathered, knocking so eagerly, so
impatiently, often with such impetuous vio-
lence ! They open, however, to but a few of
all this number. For one that finds entrance
there are hundreds that are kept without.
Why is it that the great multitude will still
keep rushing to these doors that remain shut
against so many, while so few try that other
door that remains closed against none ? Is it
that this gate to which our Saviour points us
is so Strait, the way that he would have us walk
in, is so narrow ? True, the gate is strait, —
but strait, why, and to whom ? — Strait, indeed
impossible to pass through, to all who come to
it environed with the thick wrapping of pride
and worldliness and the spirit of self- trust.

198 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

But strip yourselves of these, come naked and
bare of them, come in all humility, with a
broken and contrite heart, and you will not
find it strait, but most easy of passage. True,
the way is narrow, narrow for each individual
traveller ; but who that ever tried to tread it
would wish it to be broader, to be so wide as
to suffer him unchecked to wander away from
God, or lapse into any transgression of that
law which is so holy, and just, and good ? Nar-
row as it is to each, that way has breadth
enough for all to walk in it without any of that
jostling, and striving, and sore competing toil
which mark the broader way that so many
take.

Enter ye in at that strait gate. Walk ever
humbly, diligently, with careful footstep, with
watchful wisdom on that narrow way, and then
let the alarm rise when and how it may ; let
the cry strike the ear, ' Behold, he cometh !'
No shut door shall be before you. For you,
as for your great Forerunner, for you because
you follow him, the everlasting doors shall be
lifted up, and the glad welcome given : ' Well
done, good and faithful servant, enter thou
into the joy of thy Lord.'

XII.

THE PARABLE OF THE TALENTS.*
£ufSi)iUJ.

THE parable of the talents and the parable
of the pounds, afford material for very in-
teresting and instructive comparison and con-
trast. They were delivered at different times,
in different circumstances, and they carry with
them internal evidence of these diversities.
The parable of the pounds f was the last de-
livered by our Lord out of Jerusalem, that of
the talents the last delivered in it. Jesus was
on his way up to Jerusalem on the occasion of
his last visit to the holy city. He had reached
and passed through Jericho ; large numbers
had been attracted to him, who were full of
vague expectation ; and it was because they
thought that the kingdom of heaven should

* Matt. xxv. 14-30. t Luke xix. 11-28.

200 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

immediately appear that he spake the parable
of the pounds. That parable, as originally de-
livered, had a much wider scope and bearing
than the parable of the talents. It was meant
as a warning to the whole nation of the Jews,
embracing those of that nation who were to
receive and those who were to reject Jesus as
the Messiah. He knew well the shock to
which his approaching death and disappear-
ance would expose all those whose ideas and
hopes regarding him had been of an entirely
secular character. He foresaw the latent en-
mity to him which would break out as soon as
he was removed ; and he knew also the many
perils to which his own disciples would be ex-
posed by so sudden and unexpected a depart-
ure,— the evils which his continued absence
was likely to produce. In the prophetic pic-
ture which the parable of the pounds holds up,
both friends and enemies are introduced, and
to both appropriate premonitions are given.
Christ likens himself to a nobleman going into
a far country to receive a kingdom, and to
return. The idea is no doubt borrowed from
Archelaus and others of the Idumean family
going to Rome to be invested with the royal
authority, and returning to Judea to be ac-

The Pakable of the Talents. 201

knowledged as the lawful sovereign. In going
away, the nobleman calls his ten servants, the
whole body of his domestics, and gives each
of them a pound, saying, ' Occupy till I come.'
But the action of the parable is not confined to
those servants of the nobleman ; it takes in all
those citizens besides, who, so soon as his back
is turned, whatever may have been their dis-
positions and conduct towards him when he
was there in person among them, break out
into open and undisguised hostility, and go
the length even of sending a messenger after
him, saying, ' We will not have this man to
reign over us.' Again on the return of the
nobleman, having received the kingdom, after
reckoning with his servants, and seeing and re-
warding the diligence of those who had made
a good improvement of the money committed
to their care, the king calls for those his ene-
mies who would not that he should reign over
them, and has them slain in his presence. In
the conduct of the citizens, and in the punish-
ment of those who cast off his rule, the parable
of the pounds embraces a class not covered by
that of the talents, which has throughout to do
alone with the master and his servants. This
latter parable was delivered, not to a mixed

202 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

audience, but to one singularly select. It was
not merely that none but disciples were present,
none of those for whom that branch of the
story about rebellious citizens and their pun-
ishment was intended, — there were none but
\ apostles present. Now, corresponding to this,
let us notice, that Christ stands represented
here by a master who, on leaving, calls, it is
said, his own servants, those who were his ser-
vants in some closer or more peculiar sense
than was the case with ordinary domestics ;
and of those there are but three, — both name
and number indicating that it is Christ's con-
nection with those who, like the apostles, were
admitted to closer relationship, and had be-
stowed on them peculiar privileges, which is
here more particularly illustrated. And this
view of the more limited embrace of the para-
ble of the talents is confirmed when we com-
pare what the ten servants (the wider house-
hold of the nobleman), and the three servants
(the personal attendants of their master), have
committed to them, on the occasion of his de-
parture. The ten, the more numerous body —
representative, therefore, as we conceive, of
the general body of disciples — get all alike :
each a single pound, a pound being but the

The Pakable of the Talents. 203

twentieth part of a talent. It is the common
possession, the common property, the common
privileges of all disciples, what each and all of
them have had bestowed on them by their
great Master in the heavens, which is here set
forth. On the other hand, the one, the two,
the five talents given to each of the three ser-
vants, represent the larger but more special
donations conferred, not on all alike, but in
singular variety and in unequal proportions.
That such peculiar bestowments of the divine
grace are here pointed at may still further ap-
pear from what is said about each of the three
getting one, or two, or five talents, — each man
according to his ability,- — his natural capabili-
ties, whatever they may be, not forming part
of the talent or talents committed to his trust,
but rather forming the ground and measure
upon which, and in proportion to which, these
are bestowed. As this master has three ser-
vants, to whom, according to their original abil-
ity, he intrusts a larger portion of his goods
than he would commit to ordinary servants, so
the Great Master of the spiritual household has
those to whom, in the wider spheres of oppor-
tunity and of influence opened up to them, in
the richer spiritual gifts and graces bestowed,

204 Tuesday of tee Passion Week.

qualifying them to fill those spheres, he assigns
a higher function, as he looks for a correspond-
ing and commensurate return.

Such seem to be legitimate enough conclu-
sions from the different audiences to which the
two parables were addressed, the different ends
they were designed to gain, the different struc-
ture of their opening sections. Of far greater
importance, however, than the tracing of any
such nice distinctions — in which it is quite pos-
sible that wTe may go too far, is it to fix our
thoughts upon that common, general, universal
lesson embodied in both these parables. All
of us who have made the Christian profession
acknowledge ourselves as servants of an absent
Lord. He has temporarily withdrawn from us
his visible presence, but he has not left us with
the bonds of our servitude lightened or relaxed.
So far from this, do not these parables very
clearly and significantly point to something
peculiar in the interval betwixt his withdrawal
and return, marking it off as one of special
probation ? Let us remember that it is from
the relationship which of old existed between
a master and his slaves that the imagery of
these parables is taken. A slave in those days
might not only be called to do the ordinary

The Parable of the Talents. 205

work, household or out-of-doors, which fell to
the lot of an ordinary domestic ; but if he had
the talent for it, cr were trustworthy, his mas-
ter might allow him to engage in trade, or to
practise in any profession, the master receiving
the profits, the slave reaping the benefit of
better position and better maintenance. Were
such a master, on going away for a considerable
period from his home and country, to give three
of his slaves who were thus employed, full and
unchecked liberty in his absence to follow the
bent of their own taste and talent, instead of
prescribing for each of them a certain kind and
amount of work which, under the eye of his
overseer, day by day, and week by week, they
were to perforin, we would speak of this as lib-
eral treatment, as a mark on his part of trust
and confidence. But if, still further, such a
master, on the eve of his departure, were to
summon his slaves into his presence, and sup-
ply them with a larger or a smaller capital to
operate on, which capital they were left at per-
fect freedom to employ each as he pleased,
provided only that he employed it always as
his master's capital, and kept the returns as his
master's profits, whether such a procedure on
the master's part be assigned to a selfish or to a

20G Tuesday of the Passion Week.

generous motive, most certainly it would place
the servant in a new and peculiarly responsible
position — put him upon a special probation.
Such is the position which all true servants of
the Saviour occupy ; and such the probation to
which they are now 'exposed. Our Master is
not here personally to assign to us our different
places and our different work ; he is not here
directly to inspect, and day by day, at each
day's close, to call us into his presence and
make the reckoning with us. He has retired
from the platform of this visible creation ; but
not the less, rather indeed the more, are we
under obligation to work for and to work under
him ; for has he not treated us with a generous
liberality ? has he not loft us so to deal with
that portion of his goods he has put into our
hourtls''as to each of us seemeth wisest and
best ? has he not left us to cultivate each the
special talent he has bestowed ? and broad and
varied as the field of human effort, so broad
and varied has he not made that field, in culti-
vating which we may still be serving him ? has
he not even warned us, — however different our
ways of life, — against judging one another,
saying to us, ' Who art thou that judgest
another man's servant ? to his own master he

The Pakable of the Talents. 207

standeth or falleth V And has he not gener-
ously dealt out to us of his goods, leaving none
of us, no, not the youngest, the weakest, the
poorest, the least gifted, bankrupt of the means
to serve him. without the single pound ? The
one, the two, the five talents, have they not
been lavishly conferred? And we- have ac-
cepted all as put into our hands by him, as still
his ; as ours only to be used for him as he de-
sires. That, and no less, lies involved in our
very profession as Christians.

'The Lord Jesus Christ, whose I am and
whom I serve,' — one of the best and briefest
descriptions of discipleship ; yet how much
does it include ! All the greatest religious
ideas and beliefs are simple.; the difficulty
lying not in the intellectual conception, but in
the practical realization of them. Is it not so
with the idea that we are servants, stewards
having nothing that we can absolutely call our
own ; nothing that we are left at liberty to dis-
pose of irrespective of the will of the Sovereign
Proprietor in the heavens. Easy enough in
thought to embrace this idea ; easy enough in
words to embody it ; not difficult to get an ac-
knowledgment of it from every one who has
any faith in God or Christ j it is so natural, so

208 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

necessary a conclusion from the position in
which we and our Creator, we and our Re-
deemer, stand to one another. But truly,
habitually, practically, to carry the idea out ;
to regard our time, our wealth, our faculties,
our influence, as all given us to be spent and
exercised under the abiding, controlling convic-
tion that they are ours but in loan, held by us
but in trust, — another's property assigned to
us to be administered agreeably to his will and
for his good and glory ; let us all be ready at
once to say how difficult we have felt it to
frame our doings upon this principle ; to live
and act as the servants of that Master to whom,
ere very long, we shall have to give in the
strict account as to how every portion of that
capital which he advanced was employed.
The sense of accountability is universally felt —
is so wrought into the tissue of our moral
nature that you cannot extract it thence with-
out the destruction of our moral being. Yet,
alas ! more or less with all of us, is it not as the
voice of one crying in vain in the market-place,
a voice pleading for the divine ownership over
us, to which we render, when we pause to lis-
ten to it, the homage of respectful consent, but
which is drowned and lost amid the other

The Pakable of the Talents. 209

nearer, louder, more vehement voices which
salute our ear ?

But let us turn now to the reckoning and the
reward. In the parable of the pounds, — on the
nobleman's return, he calls for those servants to
whom he had given the money, to see how
much each had gained by trading. The first
servant approaches and says, ' Lord, thy pound
hath gained ten pounds. And he said, Well
done, thou good servant ; thou hast been faith-
ful in a very little, have thou authority over
ten cities.' A second servant says, ' Lord, thy
pound hath gained five pounds.' He repeats
the same words to him, ' Well done, thou good
servant ; thou hast been faithful in a very
little, have thou authority over five cities.' In
the parable of the talents, — the first servant
comes and says, ' Lord, thou deliveredst unto
me five talents ; behold, I have gained beside
them five talents more. His lord said to him,
Well done, thou good and faithful servant ;
thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will
make thee ruler over many things : enter thou
into the joy of thy lord.' The second comes
and says, ' Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two
talents : behold, I have gained two other talents
beside them. His lord said unto him, Well

210 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

done, good and faithful servant ; thou hast been
faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler
over many things ; enter thou into the joy of
thy Lord.'

We have but to put the two narratives to-
gether to bring out the distinction which is made
in the reward conferred upon the two servants
in the parable of the pounds, and the absence
of any such distinction in the case of the two
servants in the parable of the talents. He who
of one pound had made ten, gets the lordship
over ten cities ; he who of one pound had made
five, gets the lordship over five, — an exact pro-
portion kept between the service rendered, the
increase effected, and the reward bestowed. But
he who doubled his two talents, though putting
a less amount of gain into his master's hand, yet
in the way of improvement of his powers and
opportunities had done as much as he who
doubled his five. You find no difference, ac-
cordingly, made between them ; the praise and
the award is the same with both. One can
scarcely believe that the variation here is acci-
dental and insignificant, it carries with it so strik-
ing a verification of the divine declaration,
' Every man shall receive his own reward ac-
cording to his own labor.'

The Paeable of the Talents. 211

Bui. while the primary and direct reward is
thus meted out in such exact proportion to the
zeal, fidelity, and success with which the origi-
nal gift is employed, yet when the lost pound
and the lost talent came to be disposed of, they
are each at once handed over to the one who
had most already, without respect to the pre-
vious service or increase. Had these been
taken into account, he who out of two talents
had gained other two would have had as good
a claim to the forfeited talent as he who out of
five talents had gained other five, whilst he
who of one pound had made five, would have
been entitled to a proportionate share of the
disposable pound. All such claims, however,
are overlooked. It is to him that hath the most
that it is given, that he may have the more
abundantly. In the curiously modified structure
of these two parables, by that wherein they
agree and that wherein they differ, — how strik-
ingly is the double lesson taught, that while
each man's proper and direct reward shall ex-
actly tally with his proper and individual work,
yet that in the distribution of extra or additional
favors regard shall be had to existing position,
existing possessions, existing capability ; — that
the awards of Heaven shall be adjusted in du-

212 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

plicate proportion to the service previously ren-
dered, and to the capacity presently possessed.
Let us not pass without remark the free and
unconstrained, the warm and generous com-
mendation which is expressed in the 'Well done,
good and faithful servant. Doubtless there had
been deficiencies ; these servants had not always
been as diligent as they might have been ;
many an opportunity had they let slip unim-
proved ; many a time had they been idle when
they should have been active, slothful when,
they should have been watchful ; and even in
their most diligent endeavors to turn to best ac-
count their master's means, an eye that very
curiously scanned all their motives might easily
have detected imperfections and flaws. But
their generous Lord and Master does not in the
day of reckoning go back thus upon the past to
drag out of it all that cculd be brought up
against them. He takes the gross result, and
sees in it the proof and evidence of a prevailing
fidelity. Ungrudgingly, and without any draw-
back, he pronounces his sentence of commenda-
tion and bestows his rich rewards. No earthly
lord or master, in fable or .in fact, on any day
of reckoning, ever dealt so generously with
those who had tried to serve him, as our hea-

The Parable of the Talents. 213

venly Lord and Master will deal with us, if hon-
estly, sincerely, devotedly, yet with all our
manifold imperfections, we give ourselves to the
doing of his good and holy will.

These good and faithful servants thus com-
mended and thus rewarded, are they not held
out as examples and encouragements ? Is it
wrong then to work the work of him that hath
sent us into this world, or to be animated to
increased diligence in that work, in order that
we too may receive a similar commendation
and share a like reward ? Does any caution
and reserve in the employment of such an
argument, — the holding out of such an induce-
ment,— mark the writings of the New Testa-
ment? Do the inspired teachers, when they
hold up the rewards of immortality before our
eyes, surround the exhibition with warnings
against the imagination that any work of man
can have any worth or be at all rewardable in
the sight of God ? Do they think it necessary
to check and to guard every appeal of this kind
which is made by them ? Listen to the man-
ner in which St. Paul speaketh on this subject :
* Let no man beguile you of your reward. Be
not deceived, God is not mocked. He that
soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap cor-

214 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

ruption, and he that soweth to the Spirit shall
of the Spirit reap life everlasting. Let us not
be weary in well-doing, for in due season we
shall reap, if we faint not. Be ye steadfast,
immovable, always abounding in the work of
the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your
labor shall not be in vain in the Lord.' Hear
the manner in which St. Peter speaketh to
those who had obtained like precious faith with
himself, " Wherefore, giving all diligence, add
to your faith virtue ; and to virtue knowledge ;
and to knowledge temperance ; and to temper-
ance patience ; and to patience godliness ; and
to godliness brotherly kindness ; and to broth-
erly kindness charity For if ye do these

things, ye shall never fall : for so an entrance
shall be ministered unto you abundantly into
the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Sa-
viour Jesus Christ.' ' Look to yourselves, that
we lose not those things which we have
wrought, but that we receive a full reward.'
Above all, listen to the frequency, the particu-
larity, the earnestness with which our Lord and
Saviour himself urges this consideration upon
his disciples. Would he comfort them under
the world's reproach ? ' Blessed are ye,' he
says. ' when men shall revile you, and persecute

The Parable of the Talents. 215

you, and say all manner of evil against you
falsely for my sake ; rejoice and be exceeding
glad, for great is your reward in heaven.'
Would he warn them against ostentation in
religion, — against being led away by the exam-
ple of those who, by making long prayers,
prayers in the synagogues and corners of the
streets, enjoyed a large popular reputation for
piety? 'But thou, when thou prayest,' he
says, ' enter into thy closet, and when thou hast
shut thy door pray to thy Father which is iu
secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret
shall reward thee openly.' Would he stir them
up to works of love, to deeds of compassion ?
1 He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a
prophet shall receive a prophet's reward, and
he that receiveth a righteous man in the name
of a righteous man shall receive a righteous
man's reward ; and whosoever shall give a cup
of cold water only in the name of a disciple,
verily I say unto you he shall in no wise lose
his reward. Nor has the Saviour's language
changed, when after his ascension he shows
himself to the beloved disciple. Among the
latest of all Christ's reported words are these — •
1 Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is
with me, to give to every man according as his

216 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

work shall be. Blessed are they that do his
commandments, that they may have right to the
tree of life, and may enter in through the gates
into the city.' Is heaven, then, to be represent-
ed as a place our right to enter which is to be
won by our good works ? No ; to set forth
heaven as a reward to be secured by human
effort, by human worth, is a very different
thins; from sett in 2; forth a reward in heaven as
that which is to crown every act of love and
service which the Christian renders. Scripture
never does the former. The sinner's accept-
ance with God, his title to eternal life, it attrib-
utes solely and exclusively to the merits of the
Redeemer. From the office of justifying us in
G-od's sight, our own works, of whatever kind
they be, are absolutely and utterly excluded.
But this docs not imply that all the works of
one who has not been justified, are utterly val-
ueless and vile. The strict morality of that
young man whom Jesus looked on, and whom
Jesus loved, was not thus valueless, was not
thus vile in the Redeemer's sight, and neither
should it be in ours. Still less does it imply
that the works of one who has been justified
can have no such worth or merit as to be in
any way rewardable. In the strictest sense

The Parable of the Talents. 217

of the term, no creature, however high and
holy, can merit anything at the hands of its
Creator — that is, claim anything from God
properly as his due ; for what has he that he
has not received ? and whatever he do, he does
but what God has a right to claim from him,
and which consequently can give him no right
to claim anything of God. But in that second-
ary sense in which alone we speak of worth,
merit, rewardability, as attaching to human
character, to human actions, you find in Holy
Writ that the true Christian's -works of faith
and labors of love are spoken of as sacrifices
acceptable, well pleasing to God, drawing after
them here and hereafter a great reward.

There is no danger of urging to Christian
work by a respect to the recompense of that
reward in heaven which it shall bring hereafter
in its train, if only we have a right conception
of what kind of work it is that is there re-
warded, and what kind of reward it is that it
entails.

Had the servants in either of those parables
which we have now before us been trading
with the pounds or with the talents, in the be-
lief that these were their own, or with the
view of keeping the whole profits that they

218 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

realized to themselves, the ' Well done, good
and faithful servant ' would never have been
pronounced on them, and into their hands no
( eward of any kind should in the day of reck-
\ ning have been put.

' Lord, thy pound hath gained ten pounds/
— the one pound was his lord's at the begin-
ning, and the ten pounds are his lord's at the
tnd. It is this fidelity and zeal in the manage-
ment of another's property for another's behoof
which is rewarded by the lordship over the ten
cities. And even so is it of all spiritual service
rendered unto Christ. Whatever is its out-
ward form, however like to that which Christ
requires, yet if it spring from a selfish or mer-
cenary motive, if it be done with no other aim
than to secure a personal advantage, it comes
not within the range of that economy of re-
ward which Christ has instituted in his king-
dom.

Again, the rewards which the good and faith-
ful servants are represented here as receiving,
consist in their elevation to rule and authority,
■ — a rule and authority not absolute or inde-
pendent, not to be exercised for their own in-
dividual glory or their own individual good, —
a rule and authority to be held by them but as

The Parable of the Talents. 219

under-governors, in subjection still to their
Lord and Master, and to be exercised by them
for the good of his great empire. The reward
consists bat in a higher species of the same
kind of service which they had rendered. The
wages they have earned are made up of a
larger quantity and a higher kind of work.
You may bribe a man to diligent and contin-
ued labor in a work to which he has no heart,
and under a master whom he cares little or
nothing for, by holding out a tempting wage ;
but then the wage must be different from the
work, a wage of a kind which the man covets,
for a work to which he is indifferent, or which
is distasteful. But who would enter the ser-
vice of any master, if the only wage that was
offered was so much more work to do ? who
but he who loved the work for the work's
sake and the master's sake, and to whom,
in consequence of that love to him and it,
no more tempting offer could be held out
than a larger sphere of labor and a larger
power to fill it? Such, and no other, are the
terms of the Christian service. Such, and no
other, the wages that our Heavenly Master
holds out to all the laborers in his earthly
vineyard. Do you love that Master with all

220 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

your heart ? Is it the highest aim of your be-
ing to serve him ? Is it the deepest joy of
your heart when you are able to do him any
service ? Then, toiling laborer, look onward,
upward to your heavenly reward. Now you
often have but little liking to the spiritual ser-
vice. Then your liking for it shall be so
strong, you will never be able to keep }rour
hand for a moment from the doing of it. La-
zily, impurely, imperfectly is the work executed
now ; ardently, unremittingly, perfectly shall it
be done then, and in such doing you shall
enter into the joy of your Lord.

XIII.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.*

• /"^ OD hath appointed a day in which he
^— ' will judge the world in righteousness
by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof
he hath given assurance unto all men in that he
hath raised him from the dead.' ' The Father
hath committed all judgment unto the Son.'
' We must all appear before the judgment-seat
of Christ.' — We might have imagined that all
the ends of a judgment to come might have been
gained by its taking effect on each separate
spirit on its passage after death into the pres-
ence of the great Judge, its consignment there-
after to its appropriate condition. Besides this,
however, we are taught that there is to be a
time, a day specially set apart — at the resur-
rection from the dead, for the public, simulta-

* Matt xxv. 31-34.

222 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

neous judgment of our whole race. Having
warned his disciples of its approach, Jesus pro-
ceeds to describe some of this great day's inci-
dents.

His final advent for judgment is to take the
world by surprise. It is to come as in the night
the thief cometh, as in the day the flash of light-
ning bursts from the bosom of the thunder-cloud.
The day before its last shall see nothing unus-
ual in the earth. Over one-half the globe, the
stir and bustle of life shall be going on as in the
days before the flood. They shall be eating
and drinking, buying and selling, marrying and
giving in marriage ; the market-places full of
eager calculators, the fields of toiling laborers,
the homes of thoughtless, happy groups. In the
quiet churchyard the group of mourners shall be
gathered round the last opened grave, the cof-
fin shall have reached its resting-place, and the
hand of the gravedigger be raised to pour the
kindred earth upon the dead.

Over the other half of the globe the inhabi-
tants shall have gone to rest ; the merchant
dreaming of to-morrow's gains, the senator of
his next day's oration. Awake in his solitary
chamber the student shall be writing at his desk ;
and in the banquet-room the lights shall be glit-

The Day of Judgment. 223

tering, and the inviting table spread, and dance
and song and ringing laughter shall be there.
Just then, without herald sent or note of warn-
ing given, the Lord himself shall descend from
heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel and the trump of God. That shout,
that trumpet-call of heaven — that only sound
that ever spanned at once the globe, and was
heard the same moment at either pole, — how at
its fearful summons shall the sleepers start up,
their dreamings all cut short ! The pen shall
drop from the writer's hand ; and a shivering
terror, like that which filled Belshazzar's hall,
shall run through the banquet-room, and the
jest half uttered, the song half sung, they shall
stare at one another in pale affright ! In the
thronging market-place the buyer shall forget
.the price he offered, the seller the price he
asked : in the toiling harvest-field, the stooping
reaper shall look up, and as he looks, the last
cut grain of earth shall drop out of his hand ;
and in the quiet churchyard the work of burial
shall be stopped, and the mourners shall see a
strange commotion in the grave ; for it shall do
more, that trumpet-blast of judgment, than
waken all the sleeping, arrest all the waking
inhabitants of the globe. It shall go where

224 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

sound never went ; it shall do what sound never
did : it shall penetrate the stony monument ; it
shall pierce the grassy mound. Far down
through many a fathom of the heaving waters
shall it descend ; over the deep bed of ocean shall
it roll. And at its summons the sea shall give up
the dead that are in it ; and death and Hades
the dead that are in them. Raised from their
graves, the dead, both small and great, shall
stand before the Lord. They shall ' be caught
up to meet the Lord in the air ; lifted up above
that earth upon which the renovating fire shall
already be preparing to do its work. What a
strange assemblage ! The babe that had been
born but an hour before ; the ancient man who,
in the times before the flood, had lived for nigh
a thousand years ; the first buried, the last bu-
ried, the half-buried, — all the vast congregation
of the dead mingling with the hosts of the liv-
ing. And this great company, as it rises to
meet the Lord in the air, is to approach an-
other, it may be as large, descending from tho
heavens. For when the Son of Man shall come
in his glory to judge the earth, ' all his holy an-
gels ? are to come with him. Heaven for the
time is as it were to empty itself of its inhabi-
tants ; their shining ranks are to line the skies,

The Day of Judgment. 225

their bright forms bending in eagerness over the
impending scene. And yet another company,
of other aspect, is to be there — those angels
' which kept not their first estate, but left their
own habitation, reserved in everlasting chains
under darkness unto the judgment of the great
day :' Hell from beneath moved to meet the
Lord at his coming ; its demon hosts drawn up
unwillingly into close proximity with those who
once in the ages long gone by had been their
associates in the heavenly places. Hell and
heaven brought thus for once together, with
earth coming in between, that from its interven-
ing companies each may draw to itself all it can
claim as properly its own, and then, with a con-
trast heightened by the temporary contact and
the fresh accessions gamed, to part forever.

Soon as all the nations are gathered before
him, the Judge shall send forth his angels, and
by their agency shall separate them one from
another, as a shepherd divicleth his sheep from
the goats, and ' he shall set the sheep on his
right hand, and the goats on his left.' This
separation shall take place in silence. Child
shall meet that day with parent, and friend
with long-lost friend ; and parent shall part
from child, and friend from friend • — no wel-

226 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

comes given, no questions asked, no farewells
taken. On him who fills that throne, set there
for judgment, shall every eye be fixed, and in
stillness deep as death shall each ear wait to
drink in the sentence from his lips. Then, as
k in this mute and awful expectation all are
standing, ' shall the King say unto them on his
right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, in-
herit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world.' Every clause, almost
every word here, is rich in meaning.

1 Then shall the King say ' — it is a king, it is
the King, the King of kings, the Lord of lords,
who speaks. Visibly now before the assembled
universe shall Jesus of Nazareth be enthroned.
He who when here with us on earth, veiled his
glory, took no higher title than the Son of Man,
was content to stand before an earthly judg-
ment-seat and be doomed to die, — shall come
now with power and great glory. He shall
come, as we are told in one place, in his own
glory ; as we are told in another, in the glory
of the Father. With all the essential glory of
his native divinity, even that glory which he
had with the Father before the world was, — ■
with all the additional accumulated glory ac-
cruing to him in virtue of his having triumphed

The Judgment Day. 227

over death and hell for us men and for our sal-
vation, shall he be then visibly invested, lie
shall ' sit upon the throne of his glory.' What
this throne is as to its outward form and splen-
dor, it may be idle to imagine. It is described
in one scripture as a great white throne.
Daniel, speaking of the appearance of the Son
of Man, sa}^s that ' his throne was like the fiery
flame.' He is to come, we are distinctly told,
in the clouds of heaven. It was in a cloud that
Jesus was borne up out of the apostles' sight
as they gazed up towards heaven as he went
up, and the two men in white apparel, who
stood by them, said, ' Ye men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing up into heaven ? This same
Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven,
shall so come in like manner as ye have seen
him go into heaven.'* It may be on a cloud-
woven throne that Jesus shall then appear.
If so, the clouds that form it shall have a bril-
liance brighter far than that of any which have
ever floated in our skies ; their splendor caught
not from the shining on them of a far-distant
sun, but coming from an inner glory too bright
for human gaze, of which their richest lustre is

• Acts i. 11.

228 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

but a dim shadow — that shadow serving as a
veil to shade and drape it, so as human eye
may look upon it. But whatever its substance,
whatever its form, it shall be in sight of all, a
throne — the throne of judgment, to whose occu-
pant the great and solemn work, one for which
omniscience is needed, which the Omniscient
alone could properly discharge, has been com-
mitted. Doubts have been entertained by
some of the true and proper divinity of Jesus
Christ. When he comes, and is seated upon
that throne with that royal retinue of angels
around him, and undertakes and executes that
mighty office of the Judge of all earth, shall
any doubts of his divinity be cherished then ?
How suitable a thing in the arrangements of
the divine government does it appear, that he
who submitted to all the scorn and the con-
tumely, the suffering and the death, for our
redemption, should thus, at the winding up of
the world's affairs, have assigned to him this
office of trust and honor ; that to him every
knee should be made then to bow, and every
tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father.

' The king shall say to those on his right
hand.' To them he first shall turn, on them he

The Day of Judgment. 229

shall first fix his eye ; and when, he takes the
survey of that countless host stretching far and
wide away, till it mingles with the crowd of
angels gathering in and pressing near to those
whom they wait to hail as members of the holy,
happy family of the blessed, shall the spirit of
the Redeemer not rejoice ? In sight of the
multitude that no man can number, from every
kindred, and tribe, and people, and nation, all
ransomed from sin and death through him,
shall he not see of the travail of his soul and be
satisfied ? It may be, — none can tell, — over
the very scenes of his earthly sorrows that he
shall then hover. The approach to this world
must be made along some definite line, towards
some definite locality. And what more natural,
what more likely, than that the throne should
rest above the eminence on which the cross
once stood? And if, as he once more nears
the places, — now seen for the last time, ere
they pass away amid dissolving fires, — the sor-
rows of the great agony and death that he
there endured should rise up to his thoughts,
would not the sight of that goodly company of
the redeemed on his right hand make the very
memory of them to minister an abounding joy ?
He shall not be insensible to the triumph of his

230 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

humiliation unto death which that day shall
disclose. It shall be with no unmoved or un-
rejoicing spirit that he shall say, ' Come, ye
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre-
pared for you from the foundation of the
world.'

He shall say ' Come,1 with what different
feeling, with what a different effect, from
what once attended the utterance of the same
word! He had said once to all the sinful
children of men, ' Come unto me, and I will
give you rest.' But he had to accompany and
to follow up the gracious invitation with the
sad and sorrowful exclamation, ' Ye will not
come unto me that ve might have life.' But
no danger now of this invitation being rejected,
no sorrow to shade the spirit of him who gives
it. With all the exultation of one who asks
those to come whom he knows will be all ready
rejoicingly to follow, does he utter the gracious
word. ' Come,' he says ; and each footstep is
ready to advance, and each mansion in heaven
' echoes back the invitation, as if impatient to
receive its guest.'

' Come, ye blessed of my Father.' His re-
deemed are not to be recognized as those who
harve been plucked by him out of the hand

The Day of Judgment. 231

of an angry God, whom it has taken the very
utmost of service and sacrifice on his part to
appease and propitiate. They are the blessed
of the Father, equally as they are the ransom-
ed of the Son. It is with the Father's full ap-
proval that they are invited to the realms of
bliss. His pity, love, and mercy provided the
lamb for the sacrifice ; and now that the first
intentions of the redemption have been fulfilled
in them by their entering into peace with him,
and their drinking in of the spirit of his dear
Son, his infinite benignity but waits to bless
them in the full enjo}^ment of himself through-
out all eternity. ' Ye blessed of my Father.'
Here he pronounces the blessing who has power
to make it good. We ask God's blessing on
those we love ; but alas ! we have not that bless-
ing at command. It is often but the vague wish
of a kindly nature for others' happiness which
takes that form. It is at best but the ex-
pression of a desire, the offering of a petition,
which it remains with another to grant or to
refuse. But to be called the blessed of the
Father by Christ the Son, this is to be made
the very thing they are pronounced to be ;
and blessed forever shall they be of him who
made heaven and earth, whose large capacity

232 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

to bless shall open all its stores, and lavish upon
them all its bounties.

4 Inherit the kingdom.' It is a kingdom,
nothing less than a kingdom, that is to be
entered on. possessed, enjoyed. To rise to be
a king is the highest object of earthly ambition.
To ascend a throne is to reach the highest sum-
mit of earthly elevation. A crown is the rich-
est ornament the human brow can wear. And
what is the burden of the song of praise of the
redeemed ? ' Unto him that loved us, and
washed us from our sins in his own blood, and
hath made us kings and priests to God and his
Father, to him be glory and dominion forever
and ever.' And what saith the Lord himself
to all his faithful followers ? ' To him that
evercometh will I give to sit with me on my
throne, even as I also overcame, and am set
down with my Father on his throne.' ' Be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a
crown of life.' Whether in the condition of
the redeemed hereafter there shall be anything
of an outward kind, of position and preroga-
tive, of authority and rule, corresponding to
those of the kingly estate, we need not now
inquire. A few dim and scattered hints upon
this subject do meet our eye in the sacred

The Day of Judgment. 233

Scriptures, upon which, if it were cautiously
attempted, some plausible enough conjectures
might be grounded. There is one kingdom,
however, that we know of, into full possession
of which those on the right hand of the Judge
shall enter, the glory and the blessedness of
which need no outward accompaniment to
enhance them — the kingdom of which Jesus
spake when he said, ' The kingdom of God is
within you ;' that kingdom which is righteous-
ness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Within the heart of every true Christian this
kingdom is even now set up and established.
But here, even in its best estate, the empire of
God and Christ, of truth, of love, of holiness, is
a sadly distracted and divided one. It is sus-
tained by constant conflict ; harassing always
the inward strife, and varied the fortunes of
this changeful war. But rejoice, all ye who
have enlisted in this noblest of all conflicts, who,
following Christ, with him as your great leader
and exemplar ever before you, day by day are
carrying on this inward warfare. The rule of
your spirit, the empire of your heart, you have
given to the Lord that bought you, and his
finally, undividedly, forever it shall be. The
struggle is not to last forever. The enemies,

234 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

so many, so powerful, within and without, by
whom you are so often overcome, are not for-
ever to haunt and harass and assault. At
death they shall be driven from the field ; after
death they shall cease to have all power, and
then, when on that great day you stand on the
right hand of the Judge, then shall the full, the
perfect, the undivided reign of holiness com-
mence, and in every thought and affection and
desire of your heart doing willing homage to
the Redeemer, in every faculty of your being
going forth in the utmost intensity of its exer-
cise rejoicingly to do his will, the kingdom
shall be yours, Christ shall reign in you and
you shall reign through him.

But this kingdom is to come to you by inher-
itance. It is not one that you are to win by
your own efforts, that you are to acquire as if
by right in virtue of any sacrifices made, any
labors undergone, any victories achieved. It
is to become yours by heirship, by the will of
another, bestowed upon you as his children.
You must first become children of God by faith
that is in Jesus Christ, and, being children, then
shall ye be heirs, heirs of God, joint-heirs with
Jesus Christ. The title to the heavenly inherit-
ance links itself at once and inseparably with

The Day of Judgment. 235

our vital union to Christ our living Head. Let
Christ be ours by a humble trust, a loving em-
brace, a dutiful submission, then heaven is
ours by consequence as natural and necessary
as the son is heir to the possessions of his pa-
rent. Look ever, then, on that rich inherit-
ance, incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not
away, as the blood-bought purchase of the
cross, the full completed title to which is one
of the things freely given you of God in Christ,
to be instantly and gratefully received in the
very moment of your first believing. Let your
hope of heaven base itself thus from the first
firmly upon Christ, and it shall grow up into
strength, and be indeed the anchor of your soul,
sure and steadfast, entering into that within the
veil.

The kingdom ' prepared for you from the
foundation of the world.7 The preparation of
this kingdom for us, of us for this kingdom, is
no secondary, no subsidiary device, no after-
thought of God. The redemption that is
through Jesus Christ our Lord is not to be
thought of by us as a scheme or plan fallen
upon simply to meet and mitigate the evils of
the Fall. The primary, the parent, the eter-
nal purpose of the Supreme in the creation and

236 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

government of the world, was to make and
fashion here the materials out of which a king-
dom was to be erected, to stand throughout
eternity a glorious monument of his wisdom,
mercy, righteousness, and love. For this the
foundations of the world were laid, for this was
sin suffered to enter, for this did the Son of the
Eternal become incarnate, for this he lived, he
suffered, he died, he rose again, for this are we
all being passed through the sifting, testing,
humbling, purifying, and sanctifying processes
which make up the spiritual web and tissue of
our earthly life. How weighty the argument
to give ourselves heart and soul, all we are and
all we have, to Christ, that in us and by us, the
earliest, the dearest, the dominant design of
our Heavenly Father may be fulfilled. Shall
we, by our indifference, our worldliness, our
selfishness, our ungodliness, be parties to the
defeating of this so ancient, so infinitely benig-
nant purpose of the Most High ? Should any
of us doubt that if in simplicity of purpose we
turn to Christ, and give ourselves to him,
aught like repulse or failure shall await us?
Will God refuse to do that in us and for us, the
doing whereof to and for sinners such as we

The Day op Judgment. 237

are, has been one of the very things that from
eternity has lain the nearest to his heart ?

We know but little of what awaits us after
death. It would appear, however, from all
that the Scriptures say. that the first time that
ever with bodily eye wo shall look upon our
Lord and Saviour, shall be on that day when
he shall come sitting on the throne of his glory,
when before him we and all the nations of the
earth shall be gathered. If so, the first words
that we shall ever hear issuing audibly from his
sacred lips shall be these — may Heaven in
mercy grant it shall be as spoken of, and to us,
that they shall fall upon our ear, — ' Come, ye
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom pre-
pared for you from the foundation of the
world.'

X]V.

THE DAY OF JUDGMENT.*

IS Christ's description of his last coming to
judge the world, as given in the 25th chapter
of St. Matthew's Gospel, a parable like the three
that precede it ? Whilst substantially true, that
is, true to the great fact that it announces and
the great lesson it conveys, is it nevertheless to
be taken as a story of the imagination, whose
fancied incidents are but the drapery with which
the hand of the great Artist clothes the fact
and illustrates the lessons ? We cannot believe
so. The transition at the 31st verse from the
st}de of the parable to that of plain and simple
narrative is too marked to be overlooked or set
aside. The Son of Man, who takes the place
of the nobleman and the bridegroom, is a real
not a figurative character, and all that is said
in the 31st, 32d, 33d, and 34th verses bears the

* Matt. xxv. 35-46.

The Day or Judgment. 239

marks of a faithful recital of what is actually to
happen when the last day of the world's history
arrives. But after the separation between the
righteous and the wicked has been effected, is
the Judge to enter upon such a formal state-
ment of the grounds upon which the sentence
in either case is based ? and is there actually tc
be such a colloquy between him and those on
his right hand and those on his left as is here
recorded ? We can scarcely believe this. It is
difficult even to conceive how or by whom so
great a multitude on either side could conduct
such a colloquy with the Judge as is here re-
cited. Nor is it necessary to believe that such
verbal communications should pass to and fro
in order to get at the true bearing and import
of the passage. The Judge is represented as
adducing a single test, the application of which
to the righteous and the wicked brings out one
great distinctive feature of the difference be-
tween them. It cannot surely be meant that
the one point on which the sentence is made
here to hinge constitutes the only one of which
any cognizance will be taken, and on which the
decisions of the day will rest ; or, admitting that
there are others, that it stands out so conspicu-
ously above and beyond them all, that it alone

240 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

is regarded as furnishing the ground and reason
of the verdicts given. We are inclined rather to
believe that the single point of difference be-
tween those on the right hand and those on the
left of the Judge is fixed upon as in itself
supplying one of the most delicate, most dis-
criminating, least fallible external proofs of the
presence or the absence of that character of
true discipleship to Jesus Christ, upon which the
judgment proceeds. Outward acts or habits of
the life, quoted and referred to by the Judge as
the foundation of his judgments, could be so em-
ployed only in so far as they carried with them
conclusive evidence as to the inner state of the
mind and heart, only in so far as they were
faithful and sufficient exponents of the inner
springs and motives from which they flowed.
But is there any kind or class of actions singu-
larly and pre-eminently fitted, by their being
always done by the one, and their being never
done by the other, to mark off the true from
the false, the real from the nominal followers
of the Redeemer ? I apprehend there is, — the
very kind and class of deeds which the Judge
here lays his hand upon as characteristic of those
standing on his right hand ; for it is not any or
every kind of feeding the hungry, or visiting the

The Day of Judgment. 241

sick, or clothing the naked, that will meet the
description here given. Those acts of compas-
sion, love, and mercy which can alone truly and
fully appropriate that description to themselves
must have these two peculiar qualities belonging
to them — (1.) They must be done to the bre-
thren of the Lord, so done as to justify the
strong and striking language, ' I was an hun-
gered, and ye gave me meat : I was thirsty,
and ye gave me drink : I was a stranger, and
ye took me in : I was sick, and ye visited me :
I was in prison, and ye came unto me.'
(2.) They must be such that the doers of them
were often if not always unconscious at the
time that what they did was done unto Christ,
else they could not honestly have answered
as they did.

To whom, then, does Christ refer, when he
speaks of the least of these his brethren, the
rendering of any service to whom he reckons as
so much kindness rendered to himself? For an
answer to this leading question I refer you to
two other sayings of our Lord. The first occurs
at the close of his address to the apostles on
sending them forth, when, after laying clown in
plainest and most emphatic terms the character
and condition of the Christian discipleship, he

2-12 Tuesday of the Passion "Week.

went on to say, ' He that receiveth you, receiv-
eth me ; and he that receiveth me, receiveth
him that sent me. He that receiveth a prophet,
in the name of a prophet, shall receive a pro-
phet's reward ; and he that receiveth a righteous
man, in the name of a righteous man, shall re-
ceive a righteous man's reward. And whoso-
ever shall give to drink unto one of these little
ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a
disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no
wise lose his reward.'*

Here the kind of giving which is in no wise to
lose its reward is not simply the giving to one
of Christ's little ones — which any one might do
unawares, giving simply to the thirsty without
regard to what they were, — but it is giving to
them in the name of a disciple. The expression
' in the name of a disciple' is in itself ambigu-
ous. It might either mean giving as a disciple,
i e., as one who bore that name or character
ought to give, or it might mean giving to an-
other because the other bore and possessed the
character and name. There is another saying
of our Lord which clears away this ambiguity,
recorded in the Gospel by St. Mark :f ' For

* Matt. x. 40-42. f Mark ix. 41.

The Day or Judgment. 243

whosoever shall give you a cup of water to
drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ,
verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his re-
ward.' If this and the saying already quoted
be accepted as containing the true explanation
of the words spoken by the Judge, his citation
must be restricted to acts of kindness done to
Christ's true disciples, on the specific ground of
their character as such. There must be then
some striking peculiarity attaching to such acts
entitling them to be employed under such cir-
cumstances for so great and grave a purpose.
Whatever this peculiarity be, we have advanced
so far as to perceive that it depends on the
connexion between those to whom the kind-
nesses are shown and Christ. It must be
therefore in the character of that motive which
would lead us specially to sympathize with and
to succor those standing in this connexion. In
common life there are two kinds of connexion
which one man may have with another, the ex-
istence of either of which might generate a
claim upon our sympathy and help. There
may be the connexion of relationship and there
may be the connexion of resemblance. You
recognize the claim springing from the first of
these when you say that you cannot see the

244 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

son of your best benefactor, or of your old
and faithful friend, in want, unpitied and un-
relieved.

You recognize the claim springing from the
other when you say that one, so like in char-
acter, in principle, in taste, in habit, to the
friend whom you admire above all others, to
whom you are most tenderly attached, has a
hold involuntarily upon your heart. Between
the two there is this difference, that if relation-
ship be the only ground on which you act, the
idea of that relationship must be distinctly be-
fore your mind ; whereas, if it be similarity of
character that supplies the impulse to benevo-
lence, there may be at the time no felt or con-
scious reference to the person, likeness to whom
may nevertheless form the secret spring of
your conduct. As regards the union between
Christ and all his true and faithful followers,
the two species of connexion, — of relationship,
and of resemblance, — are not only invariably
to be found together, but you have no other
sure means of knowing where the one tie, that
of discipleship, exists, but by observing where
the other, that of likeness, is manifested. The
living heart-union with Christ which constitutes
the central essential element of the Christian

The Day of Judgment. ■ 245

character, is no bare external bond, such as
earthly relationships so often are. It never
does, it never can, exist without more or less
of the spirit of the Saviour himself being poured
into the heart, more or less of a likeness to
Christ being impressed upon the life. To dis-
cern the image of the Saviour so produced, in
its dimmest and most broken, as well as in its
fullest and brightest forms, and to feel the
force of that attraction which this image exerts,
the observer himself must have been fashioned
into the same image, must have drunk in of the
same spirit. But every one that loveth him
that begat, loveth also all who are begotten of
him ; a secret sympathy, a bond of true and
deep and everlasting brotherhood binds all
together who are one in Christ, — one in the
participation of his Spirit ; nor is it necessary
to the force of that attraction being felt which
draws them to one another, that a distinct or
conscious regard be had either to Christ him-
self personally or to the common relationship
in which they stand to him.

1 Oft ere the common source be known
The kindred drops will claim their own,
And throbbing pulses silently
Move heart to heart by sympathy.'

246 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

You may love, you may pity, you may help
one of Christ's little ones without having Him
before your thoughts, just as ycu may admire
the splendor of a broken sunbeam without
thinking of the orb of light ; nay more, the
further he and the relationship are for the
moment out of sight, the more purely and en-
tirely that the sympathy and aid spring spon-
taneously from seeing and admiring and loving
in a suffering brother the meekness and the
gentleness, the patience and the devout sub-
mission which Christian faith inspires, the
clearer and less doubtful the evidence that the
same faith dwells in your own bosom, working
there like results. The charity which flows
unbidden from that inwrought kindredship of
disposition by which all true followers of the
Lamb are characterized, waiting not, when it
sees a suffering brother, to make the inference
that his belonging to Christ confers upon him a
title to relief, — springs not from any anticipa-
tion of reward. It flows at once out of that
love to Christ, supreme, predominant, which
has taken possession of the heart. And hence
the explanation of the answer which the
righteous are represented as making to the
declaration of the Judge, — the simple, natural

The Day of Judgment. 247

utterance of humility and surprise : ' Lord,
when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee ?
or thirsty, and gave thee drink ? when saw we
thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked,
and clothed thee ? or when saw we thee sick,
or in prison, and came to thee ? And the
King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I
say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one
of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto
me.'

Should any one, then, under the impression
that the first question to which in the great
judgment he would have to give reply, would
be this, ' Did you ever relieve any of Christ's
brethren because of their being such?' feeling
unfurnished and anxious to provide himself
with a sufficient and satisfactory answer, go
forth immediately and seek out some destitute
disciples and minister to their wants, would
such a ministry of benevolence as that suit the
requirements of the Judge ? Assuredly not.
You might to any extent feed the hungry, or
clothe the naked, or visit the sick ; those whom
you thus clothed and fed and visited might be
brethren of the Lord ; nay, you might select
them as the objects of your charity on that
very account, and yet after all your charity

218 Tuesday of tiie Passion Week.

might be but selfishness in disguise, utterly
wanting that element so delicately and beauti-
fully brought out in the answer of the right-
eous, of being the unconscious emanation of a
true love and a true likeness to Jesus Christ.
No charity of mere natural instinct, no charity
of outward show or artificial fabric, no charity
but that which is the genuine, spontaneous,
untainted product of a profound personal at-
tachment to the Saviour, will meet the require-
ments of the Judge. And the more you study
the deeds to which he points, and which are
here described, the more will you be convinced
that a more truthful and delicate test of the
presence and power of such an attachment
could not have been selected than that which
the performance of such deeds supplies.

Let us turn now for a moment to the sen-
tence passed upon those standing on the left
hand of the Judge : ' Depart from me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels.' How striking the an-
tithesis between this and the sentence passed
upon the righteous ! The ' Come ' of the one
has its counterpart in the ' Depart ' of the
other ; 'ye blessed,' its counterpart in 'ye
cursed.' But it is not, ' ye cursed of my Fa-

The Day of Judgment. 249

ther.' The blessing had come from him. The
Sou as Judge attributes it to the Father. But
the curse comes from another source. The
Judge will not connect his Father's name with
it. The wicked have drawn down the curse
upon their own heads ; its fountainhead is else-
where than in the bosom of eternal love. The
kingdom, upon the inheritance of which the
righteous are called to enter, is not spoken of
as an everlasting kingdom. There was no need
of so describing it ; by its very nature it is a
kingdom that cannot be shaken, can never be
removed. But the fire is called an everlasting
fire, to remind us that so long as ever in the
bosom of the sinful the fuel for that flame
exists, it must burn on, the ever sinning bring-
ing the ever suffering with it in its train. But
here again there is a variation of the phrase.
In the one case it is a kingdom prepared for
the righteous themselves from the foundation
of the world ; in the other it is a fire prepared
tor the devil and his angels. Can we believe
this variation to be unintentional and insignifi-
cant ? Shall we not gladly accept the truth
that lies concealed in it, that God delighteth
in mercy, and that judgment is his strange
work ?

250 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

Then follows the colloquy between the Judge
and the condemned, by far the most impressive
thing in which, to our eye, being this, that the
Judge does not in their case bring forward an
opposite and contrasted kind or class of actions
to confront with those attributed to the right-
eous, in order to indicate the presence within
of an opposite character, the operation in them
of an opposite class of motives. Against the
cited deeds of mercy he does not set up as many
deeds of selfishness, or unkindness, or cruelty.
He puts the whole stress of the condemnatory
sentence simply and alone upon the non-per-
formance of the service of love to his brethren,
and through them to himself. Had it been a
merely moral reckoning with mankind that was
intended to be represented here, then surely so
much positive evidence on the one side would
have been met with so much positive evidence
on the other. Had it been meant that all men
were to be divided into two classes, and acquit-
ted or condemned according to their respective
kindliness or charitableness of disposition and
conduct, with whatever accuracy the dividing
line be carried throughout the entire mass of
mankind, such infinite variety of shades of char-
acter and modes of conduct are there that those

The Day of Judgment. 251

nearest to the line on one side would approach
bo closely to those nearest to it on the other,
that it would be very difficult to make out the
equity of an adjustment which would raise the
one to heaven and consign the other to hell.
It is however upon no such principle that the
separation is represented here as being conduct-
ed. The great, the primary requirement, the
presence or the absence of which fixes the po-
sition of each class on the right hand or upon
the left of the Judge, is love to Christ, likeness
unto him, as tested and exhibited in deeds of
kindness done unto his poor afflicted, suffering
children. Apart from such love, such likeness
to the Lord himself, you cannot have the spe-
cial affection to his brethren. That special
affection cannot subsist, without running out
into countless acts of compassion, of needful and
generous help. As to Christ himself, then, it
is not our knowledge, nor our faith, that is to
furnish the ground of our being numbered with
those who are to stand on the right hand of the
Judge. Infinite may be the variety, both in
kind and in degree, of the acquaintance with
the Saviour's character, the confidence in the
Saviour's work. In the multitude that no man
can number there be those who saw the day

252 Tuesday of the Passion Week.

of Christ afar off, who had but dim perceptions
of the personal character and high office execut-
ed by the great Redeemer of mankind. In
one thing they shall agree : in having hearts
linked by the tie of a supreme affection to him
m having lives pictured over with those many
acts of loving tenderness and tender mercy here
so simply and so beautifully portrayed. As to
our fellow-men, again, it is not our honesty, our
justice, our generosity, our fidelity, our natural
benevolence which is to place us on the right
hand of the Judge. It is how we have felt, it
is how we have acted, towards the afflicted bre-
thren of Jesus. A narrow contracted circle
this may appear, yet one round which all the
earthly virtues will be found to congregate,
finding there the bond that binds them all to-
gether as the fruits of the Spirit, and wraps them
all in harmonious and beautiful assemblage
round the cross of the Crucified. He may be a
kind man who is not honest, an honest man who
is not meek, a meek man who is not pure, but,
take him who feeds the hungry, who clothes the
naked, who visits the sick, because of the spirit
of Jesus implanted in his own soul, and because
of the image of the Saviour seen on them he
ministers to — this man's deeds of mercy will not

The Day of Judgment. 253

be limited to that one circle ; ready to show
special kindness to those that are of the house-
hold of the faith, he will be ready to do good
unto all men as God gives him the opportunity.
Be not then over-careful, ye who are members
of this household, to distinguish among the poor
and the afflicted who are daily appealing to
your benevolence, who do and who do not be-
long to Christ. If so, you may be putting it
out of your power to join in the language put
into the lips of the righteous, ' Lord, when saw
we thee an hungered V Cultivate that large
diffusiveness of pity and of help, that would, if
it could, feed all the hungry, and give drink to
all the thirsty, leave none who wanted unvisited
and unrelieved. ' Be not forgetful,' said the
apostle, ' to entertain strangers, for thereby
some have entertained angels unawares.' An-
gel footsteps no longer tread on earth, angels
come not now to our tent-doors. For angels
clothed in human forms we may no longer, as
the patriarchs did, spread the table and lay out
the food. But a greater than angels walks
among us, in suffering, in disguise. Christ him-
self is here, — here in some hungry one to be fed,
some imprisoned one to be visited, some afflict-
ed one to be comforted. Be not forgetful to

254: Tuesday of the Passion Week.

let your sympathy and help range over .the
whole field of suffering humanity ; here and
there you may be succoring your Saviour un-
awares ; you may be pleasing him who identi-
fies himself with all his needy suffering children,
and who will be ready at last to say, ' Inasmuch
as ye did it unto one of the least of these my
brethren, ye did it unto me.'

XV.

THE WASHING OF THE DISCIPLES' FEET.*

£l)urst>cuj.

JESUS sat down upon the Mount of Olives,
over against the Temple ; and as the shad-
ows of evening deepened in the valley of Ked-
ron, and crept up its sides, he addressed to his
wondering disciples the parables and prophe-
cies preserved in the 24th and 25 chapters of
St. Matthew's Gospel. It was after he had fin-
ished all these sayings, either before he rose
from his seat on the hill-side, or on his way out
afterwards to the village, that he said to his
disciples, ' Ye know that after two days is the
feast of the Passover, and the Son of Man is
betrayed to be crucified.' lie had previously
in his discourse been dealing with a broad and
distant future, been sketching the worlds his-
tory, describing its close, — giving no dates,

* Matt. xxvi. 1-5, 14-19; Mark xiv. 1, 2, 11-17 ; Luke xxii
1-30 ; John xiii. 1-20.

256 Thursday of the Passion Week.

leaving much as to the sequence of events
shadowy and undefined. Now he turns to a
nearer future, to an event that was to happen
to himself ; and in terms free of all indistinct-
ness and ambiguity he announces that the day
after the next he would be betrayed, and after-
wards crucified.

It may have been about the very time that
Christ himself was speaking thus of his impend-
ing betrayal and crucifixion, that a secret ses-
sion of the Sanhedrim was assembling, not in
its usual Hall of meeting, which formed part of
the Temple buildings, but in the house of Caia-
phas, which tradition has located on the Hill of
Evil Counsel, the height rising on the other
side of the city from the Mount of Olives,
across the valley of Hinnom. To this house
of Caiaphas, wherever it was situated, the
chief priests, and scribes, and elders of the peo-
ple now resorted to hold their secret conclave.
They met in chafed and angry mood. For
three consecutive days Jesus had been denoun-
cing and defying them, in the most open man-
ner, in the most public places. They had tried
all their art to weaken his reputation, to put
him wrong with the people or with their rulers,
to extort from him some saying that might be-

The Washing of the Disciples' Feet. 257

tray ignorance or involve blasphemy or treason.
They had been more than defeated ; their own
weapons had been turned against themselves ;
the bitterest humiliation had been inflicted on
them. There was but one remedy. They
must meet this man in the Temple courts no
more. Never again must they allow them-
selves to be dragged into personal collision with
him. There was but one seal for lips like his
— the seal of death, and the sooner it were im-
posed the better. They had no difficulty in
coming to the conclusion that he must die.
But as old and practiced politicians, who knew
the people well, they hesitated as to the time
and manner of taking and killing him. An
open arrest at this particular time, when there
were in and around Jerusalem such crowds of
ignorant country-people, among them such
numbers of those fiery-spirited Galileans, over
whom Jesus had acquired so great an apparent
mastery, would be perilous in the last degree.
And so, curbing their wrath, they think it bet-
ter to bide a while, and they said, ' Not at the
feast time, lest there be an uproar among the
people.' Whatever pain the self-restraint may
have cost them was more than overcome by
the joy they felt when Judas came and said,

258 Thuhsday of the Passion Week.

1 What will ye give me, and I will deliver him
unto you V A hopeful sign this in their eyes :
one of this man's bosom friends turning against
him, having some good ground, no doubt, they
think, to hate him, as he evidently does. He
can do for them the very thing they want : put
it in their power to seize Jesus in one of his
secret haunts, come upon him ' in the absence
of the multitude.' And he is quite willing, ob-
viously, to meet their wishes. Nor is he hard
to bargain with. They offer him thirty silver
shekels, the fixed price in the old law of the
life of a servant, somewhere between three and
four pounds of our money. He accepts the
offer, and it is agreed between them that this
sum shall be given him on his delivery of Jesus
into their hands. Neither he nor they at first
imagine that this would be done so speedily —
even during the approaching feast.

A baser piece of treachery, a fouler compact,
there has never been. Judas may not have
been an utterly false man from the very begin-
ning of his attachment to Christ's person ; it
may not have been pure and simple selfishness
and greed that tempted him to join the ranks
of Christ's disciples. Once however, admitted,
to his own great surprise perhaps, among the

The Washing op the Disciples' Feet. 259

twelve, and intrusted with the care of the small
common fund which they possessed, the low
base spirit that was in him led him into all
kinds of selfish and covetous speculations and
anticipations. As our Lord's career ran on, it
became more and more apparent that little
room for indulging these would be given. Dis-
appointment grew into discontent. In the lov-
ing, pure, unearthly, unselfish, good and holy
Jesus, there was nothing to attract, there was
much to repel. The closer the contact the
more that repellent power was felt. Already,
toward the close of the second year of his at-
tachment to Christ's person, he had said or
done something to draw from the reticent lips
of his Master the declaration, ' Have not I
chosen you twelve? and one of you is a devil ?'*
Still later, his Master's whole bearing, speech,
and conduct, his retiring from the crowd, his
courting solitude, the deep shades of sadness
on his countenance, his beginning to tell his
disciples privately, but plainly, that he was
about to be taken from them, that a shameful
and cruel death was about to be inflicted on
him, all this, little as Judas, in common with

* John vi. 70.

2C0 Thursday of the Passion Week.

the rest, may have understood or realized the
actual issue that was impending, ran utterly
counter to all his plans and hopes. Upon dis-
appointment, discontent, alienation, and dis-
gust may have supervened, and in so ill a mood
may Judas then have been, that the rebuke a
few days before at Bethany, when he had in-
terposed his remark about the box of precious
ointment, had galled him to the uttermost, and
whetted his spirit even to the keen edge of
malice and revenge. That all this may have
been so does not interfere with the belief that
in the final stages of his treachery, other
motives besides those of personal malice and
pure greed may have entered into his heart
and taken their share in prompting to the last
black deed that has stamped his name with
infamy.

It would not appear that in the compact as
at first made between Judas and the Sanhedrim,
there was any stipulation as to time. His offer
would facilitate a secret and safe arrest of
Jesus, but it may not have at once and entirely
allayed their fears as to attempting this arrest
during the feast. The conditions settled as to
the thing to be done, and the bribe to be paid

The "Washing of the Disciples' Feet. 2G1

for the doing of it, they part, leaving it to
Judas to find his own time and opportunity.

And now in the current of a narrative,
which, ever since our Lord's arrival in the
neighborhood of Jerusalem, has been getting
quicker and more disturbed, there is a stop, a
stillness. The troubled waters sink for a sea-
son out of sight, to rise again darker and more
vexed than ever. On the Tuesday evening
Jesus retired to Bethany, and we see nothing,
know nothing of him for the next day and a
half. The intervening Wednesday would, no
doubt, be given to quiet and repose. There
are hollows in our own Arthur Seat not as far
from Edinburgh as Bethany was from Jerusa-
lem, in which one feels as far away from the
noise and bustle of city life as if in the heart of
the Highlands. Such was the hollow in which
the favorite village lay, and there, in occupa-
tions unknown to us, this one peaceful day was
spent, and there at night he had where to lay
his head for his last sleep before his death —
the night and day recruiting him in body and
in spirit for Gethsemane and the Cross.

On the Thursday afternoon he once more
bent his steps towards the holy city. He was
to celebrate that evening the Passover with his

262 Thursday of the Passion Week.

disciples. Much in the way of preparation
had to be done, — the selection of a suitable
apartment, the killing of the lamb, the provid-
ing of the bread, the wine, and the salad of
bitter herbs. Nothing as yet had been ar-
ranged, and there was now but little time to
spare. The disciples come to him saying,
' Where wilt thou that we prepare for thee to
eat the Passover ?' Our Lord does not send
them all at random to do the best they could ;
he singles out Peter and John. Though often
singularly and closely associated afterwards,
this, I believe, was the only time that Christ
separated them from all the rest, and gave
them a conjunct task to perform. In sending
them before the others, he could easily and at
once have indicated where the room was in
which they were to meet in the evening. In-
stead of this he gives them a sign, the following
of which was to conduct them to it. This way
of ordering it, whatever was its real purpose,
served effectually to conceal from the others
the locality of the guest-chamber, and may
have been meant to keep the traitor in the
meantime in ignorance of a fact, his earlier
knowledge of which, communicated to the
chief priests, might have precipitated the ca-

The Washing of the Disciples' Feet. 2C3

tastrophe, and cut off Gethsemane from our
Saviour's passion.

' Go into the city, and when you enter there
shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of
water : follow him. And wheresoever he shall
go in, say }^e to the goodman of the house, The
Master saith, Where is the guest-chamber,
where I shall eat the Passover with my disci-
ples V Upon these Passover occasions the
inhabitants of the metropolis opened their
houses freely to strangers coming up from the
country ; but was there no danger, if it were
known that this accommodation was required
for him whose life the authorities were seeking,
that it might be denied ? The singular mes-
sage which Peter and John were to deliver
would reveal the very thing which, left to their
own discretion, they might have wished to
hide, for could two men in Galilean garb and
with Galilean accent speak of the Master and
his disciples, and it not be known of whom
they spoke ? Coming from such a quarter,
carrying with it such a tone of authority, being,
in fact, a command rather than a request,
might not the goodman of the house be offend-
ed and refuse ? The instructions, however, are
precise, and Peter and John follow them. All

264 Thursday of the Passion Week.

happens as Christ had indicated. They go into
the city, they meet the man with the pitcher,
they follow him, they deliver the message, and
whether it was that the man himself was a dis-
ciple of Jesus, or that he was otherwise influ-
enced, not only is there a ready and cordial
compliance on his part, but, when Peter and
John are shown into the apartment, they find
it, as was not always the case, already furnished
and prepared. It was a momentous meeting
which on this last night of our Redeemer's life
was to take place in this room, one never to be
forgotten, to be had in memory by generation
after generation, through all the after history
of the Church ; and everything about it, even
to the indicating of the place and the provid-
ing of the needful furniture, was matter of
divine foresight and care.

The accounts of the different Evangelists are
so broken and confused that it is impossible to
give anything like a regular connected narra-
tive of what happened that night within the
guest-chamber. At an early stage a strife
broke out among the apostles as to which of
them should be accounted the greatest. This
may have happened after the Passover cele-
bration had commenced. The first thing done,

The Washing of the Disciples' Feet. 265

when the company had assembled and sat
down, was to pass round a cup of wine, the
first of the four that were circulated in the
course of the feast. If it was in doing so that
they were uttered, then our Lord's first words
after sitting down were those: 'With desire I have
desired to eat this Passover with you before I
suffer : for I say unto you, I will not eat any
more thereof, until it be fulfilled in the king-
dom of God. And he took the cup, and gave
thanks, and said, Take this and divide it among
yourselves : for I say unto you, I will not
drink of the fruit of the vine, until the kingdom
of God shall come.'* Never before had they
sat down in such a formal manner with their
Master at their head. The circumstance of
taking their places around this board suggests
to their narrow minds thoughts of the places
and the dignities that, as they fancied, were
afterwards to be theirs ; and when, almost as
soon as he had sat down, Jesus began to speak
of the kingdom as if he was just about to enter
on it, the strife as to which of them should be
greatest in that kingdom arose.

But this strife has been attributed to another

* Luke xxii. 15-18.

266 Thuksday of the Passion "Week.

origin, one which links it in a manner so natu-
ral to the washing of the disciples' feet as to
predispose us to adopt it. The master of the
house had relinquished for the strangers the
best apartment of his dwelling, and furnished
it as well as he could. There was one duty of
the host, however, that he failed to discharge.
He did not personally receive the guests, nor
preside at the washing of the feet, which
always preceded the beginning of a feast. He
and his family and his domestics were all them-
selves elsewhere engaged in the keeping of the
Passover. He saw that in the room the neces-
sary apparatus for the washing, the basin and
the water and the towel, were all provided,
but he left it to the guests themselves to see
that it was done. But which of the twelve will
do it for the others ? It is the office of the
servant, the slave ; which of them will acknow-
ledge that he stands in any such relationship
to the rest? Besides the settlement of their
respective places around the table, here was
another root of bitterness springing up to trou-
ble, raising the question of precedency among
them.

Spring up how it might, we have the fact
that around the first communion-table among

The Washing of the Disciples' Feet. 267

the apostles, in presence of their Master, in the
critical and solemn position in which he and
they stood, there was actually a quarrel about
their individual rights and privileges ; a petty
ambition, the love of place and power, finding
its way into the hearts of those most honored
of the Lord, entering to defile the most sacred
season and solemnity. There is some excuse
for the twelve untaught Galilean fishermen, with
all their vulgar conceptions at this time of what
was coming when their Master's kingdom should
be instituted. But what shall we say of those
who have had the full light of the after revela-
tions given, and who, in front of our Lord's
most solemn declaration that his kingdom is
not of this world, that the kind of authority and
lordship that kings and princes assume and ex-
ercise would not have place within his Church,
under the garb of a glowing zeal, harbor as
strong a love of place and power, as much van-
ity and pride, as much irritation of temper, as
much severity and uncharitableness, as is ever
to be seen in the world of common life ? Alas
for the strife of the first communion-table !
Alas for the strifes and debates of almost every
ecclesiastical body which since the days of Jesus
Christ has been embodied in his name. You

268 Thursday of the Passion Week.

might have thought that in tnose churches
where the distinctions were the fewest and of
the least value, where there was least of that
kind of food upon which the pride and vanity
and ambition of our nature feed, there would
have been proportionally less of their presence
and power. The fact, I think, rather lies the
other way, for a reason not difficult to divine.
None of the twelve would do the part of the
minister or the servant to the others ; and so,
grumbling among themselves, they sit down
with unwashed feet. Jesus rises from the table,
lays aside his upper garment, pours water into
the basin, takes the towel, girds himself with it,
and begins himself to do what none of them
would undertake. One of the first before whose
feet the Saviour stooped may have been Judas.
We shall see presently that he had thrust him-
self into a seat very near to, if not the next to
that of Christ. He allows his feet to be washed,
not without a certain strange feeling in heart,
but without word spoken or remonstrance made.
But when Jesus approaches Peter, the impetu-
ous apostle cannot remain silent.' 'Lord,' he
says, lost in wonder, full of reverence, profoundly
sensible of the great gulf that separated himself
and all the rest from Jesus, — ' Lord, dost thou

The Washing of the Disciples' Feet. 269

wash my feet ?' He gets the calm reply, ' What
I do thou knowest not now ;' — ' thou hast not
yet discerned — though it needed no quick eye
to see it — the purpose of my act ; but thou shalt
know hereafter, shalt know presently.' But
the impatient apostle will not submit and wait.
Strong in his sense of the unseemliness, the un-
suitableness of the act, fancj-ing that the very
love and reverence he bore to Jesus forbade him
to permit it, he declares, ' Thou shalt never
wash my feet.' ' If I wash thee not, thou hast
no part with me,' is Christ's reply, — a single
slender beam of light upon the darkness, enough
to point to some higher spiritual meaning of the
act, not enough to reveal the whole signifi-
cance of the transaction to Peter's mind, but
quite enough to turn at once into quite an
opposite channel the current of his feelings.
' No part with thee if thou wash me not ! —
then, Lord, not my feet only, but also my
hands and my head.' Taking up once more
his act in its symbolic character, as representa-
tive of the spiritual washing by regeneration,
Jesus saith to him, ' He that is washed needeth
not save to wash his feet, but is clean every
whit.' For even as he who in the ordinary
' roadway cleanses himself from outward defile-

270 Thuesday of the Passion Week.

ment is clean every whit, and needs no after
washing save that of the feet — for go where he
may upon the dusty roads, every hour, and at
all times, the feet are being soiled and need re-
newed, repeated washings, — so is it true of him
who hath gone down into the great laver and
washed all sins away in the blood of the atone-
ment, that he is clean every whit, has all his
sins forgiven, all the guilt of them removed, and
needs no after washing, saving that which con-
sisteth in the removal of the daily stains that
are ever afresh, by our converse with this world
being contracted. ' And ye are clean,' added
Jesus, ' but not all.' The words, but faintly
understood, yet so calmly and authoritatively
uttered, effect their immediate object. Peter
silently submits ; the work goes on ; the circle
is completed. The feet of all are washed, no
one after Peter venturing to resist or remon-
strate.

The feet washing in the guest-chamber by
our Lord himself we are inclined to regard as
the greatest instance of his humiliation as a man
in the common intercourse of life, in the dis-
charge of its ordinary duties. He was at pains
himself to guard it against misinterpretation :
'So, after he had washed their feet, and had

The Washing of the Disciples' Feet. 271

taken his garments, and "was set down again, he
said unto them, Know ye what I have done to
you ? Ye call me Master and Lord : and ye say
well ; for so I am.' It was his being so infin-
itely their superior that lent its grace and full
significance to the act. And this superiority,
so far from cloaking, or with false humility pre-
tending to disown, he asserts. This is what
makes the whole ministry of our Lord on earth
so utterly unlike that of any other man who
has ever trodden it. No one ever made
pretensions so high ; no one ever executed
offices so humble. No one ever claimed to
stand so far above the ordinary level of our
humanity ; speaking of himself as the light of
the world, having rest and peace and life for all
at his disposal, to dispense as truly royal gifts
to all who owned him as their spiritual King.
No one ever made himself more thoroughly one
with every human being whom he met, or was
so ready with all the services that in his need
one man may claim from his brother.

' If I, then, your Lord and Master, have wash-
ed your feet, ye ought also to wash one anoth-
er's feet. For I have given you an example, that
ye should do as I have done unto you.' With
that greatest of all examples before us, what

272 Thursday of the Passion Week.

act, what office of human kindness naturally
laid upon us should we ever count too low, too
mean, — should we shrink from, because of any
idea that it would be a humiliating of ourselves
before our fellow men to undertake it ? It is
indeed an utter mistaking of this example to
suppose that it calls us" to a repetition of the
very act of Christ. Only if there be feet need-
ing to be washed, which the custom of the
time and country requires' to be so, while there
is no one else upon whom the dufy properly
devolves, only then does the example of Jesus
call to a literal imitation of what he did. His
own acts stands before us not as a model act to
be exactly copied, but as an act representative to
us of the whole circle of kindly offices that we
are called upon to render to one another, and
as illustrative of the humble self-denjnng spirit
in which all these offices should be discharged.
You are all aware that, on each returning
Maundy Thursday, the day before Easter, the
Pope washes the feet of twelve poor men. A
better comment has never been made upon the
act than the one made long ago by Bengel.
' In our day,' he says, ' popes and princes imi-
tate the feet- washing to the letter, but a greater
subject for admiration would be, for instance, a

The Washing of the Discikles' Feet. 273

Pope in unaffected humility washing the feet
of one king (his own equal in rank, and so the
exact analogue to the disciples' mutual wash-
ing of each other as brethren), than the feet of
twelve paupers.' So true were the Saviour's
words that went to indicate the difficulty which
lay in a faithful following of the example that
he had just been setting, — ' If ye know these
things, happy are ye if ye do them.' So easy
is it to violate the spirit by sticking to the let-
ter of a precept ; so easy for pride to take the
form of humility.

XVI.

THE EXPOSURE OF JUDAS.*

THE four Evangelists agree in stating that
it was upon a Sunday, the day after the
Jewish Sabbath, that our Lord rose from the
grave, and that it was on the day preceding
this Sabbath that he was crucified. They all
assign the same events to the same days of the
week : the last supper to Thursday evening,
the crucifixion to Friday, the lying in the tomb
to Saturday, the resurrection to Sunday. But
there is a marked discrepancy in the accounts
of the three earlier Evangelists as compared
with that of St. John, as to the relation of
these days of the week to the Jewish days of
the month and of the feast. If we had only
the narratives of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and

* Matt. xxvi. 21-25 ; Mark xiv. 18-21 ; Luke xxii. 21-23 ; John
xiii. 21-35

The Extosuee or Judas. 275

St. Luke before us, we must at once have con-
cluded that our Lord partook of the Passover
supper at the same time with the Jews. On
the other hand, if we had only the narrative
of St. John before us, we should as naturally
have concluded that it was upon the evening
after the crucifixion, that the Paschal supper
was observed generally by the Jews, and that
Jesus must have antedated his observance of
it, partaking of it a day before the usual one,
on the evening of the 13th day of the month
Nisan. The removal of this discrepancy is one
of the most difficult problems with which har-
monists of the Gospels have had to deal, nor is
there any single question touching the chro-
nology of our Saviour's life upon which more
labor and learning have been bestowed. The
success has not been equal to the pains be-
stowed. The matter still remains in doubt.
No doubt whatever exists as to the fact, that,
whether he anticipated the ordinary time or
not, it was that he might observe the Jewish
Passover with his disciples, that our Lord, on
the night of his betrayal, sat down with his
twelve apostles in the guest-chamber at Jerusa-
lem.

In the Paschal supper, as then observed

276 Thursday of the Passion Week.

(and we cannot well imagine that our Lord
would deviate to any great degree from the
customary manner of its observance), four, and
on some occasions five, cups of wine were circu-
lated among the guests, marking different
stages of the feast. When the company, which
ordinarily was not less than ten, nor more than
twenty,* had assembled and ranged themselves
round the tables, the first cup of wine was filled,
and the head of the family (for we are to look
upon this ordinance as essentially a family
gathering) pronounced a blessing on the feast
and on the cup, using the expression, ' Praise
be to thee, 0 Lord our God, the King of the
world, who hast created the fruit of the vine.'
After the blessing, the cup was passed round,
and the hands were washed. The bitter herbs
dipped in vinegar were then placed upon the ta-
ble, and a portion of them eaten in remembrance
of the sorrows of the Egyptian bondage. After
this the other Paschal dishes were brought in :
the charoseth or sop, a liquid compounded of
various fruits and mingled with wine or vine-
gar, into which pieces of bread were dipped ;
the cake of unleavened bread ; and finally the

* It might be one bundled, if eacb could have a piece of the
lamb as largo as an olive .

The Exposure of Judas. 277

roasted lamb placed before the head of the
company. Then followed the questions and
explanations put and given in accordance with
the instructions of Moses : ' And it shall come
to pass, when your children shall say unto you,
What mean ye by this service ? that ye shall
say, It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover,
who passed over the houses of the children of
Israel in Egypt, when he smote the Egyptians,
and delivered our houses.'* They sang then
together the first part of the Hallel or song of
praise, embracing the 113th and 114th Psalms,
and the second cup of wine was drunk. Then
began the feast proper : the householder, tak-
ing two small loaves, breaking one of them in
two, laying the pieces upon the whole loaf,
wrapping the whole in bitter herbs, dipping it
in the sop, and eating it, with the words, * This
is the bread of affliction which our fathers ate
in Egypt.' Next came the blessing upon each
kind of food as it was partaken of, the Paschal
lamb being eaten last, and the third cup,
called the cup of blessing, was drunk. The
remainder of the Hallel, the Psalms from the
115th to the 118th, were sung or chanted, with

* Exodus xii. 26, 27.

278 Thursday of the Passion Week.

which the celebration ordinarily concluded
Occasionally a fifth cup was added, and what
was called the Great Hailel (Psalms cxx.-
cxxxvii.) was repeated.

' It was after the strife and the feet-washing,
and coincident with the circulation of the first
of these Passover cups, that our Lord used the
words recorded in the 15th, 16th, 17th, and
18th verses of the 22d chapter of St. Luke :
' And he said unto them, With desire I have
desired to eat this Passover with you before I
suffer. Clear before the Saviour's eye were all
the scenes of the impending midnight hour in
the garden, the next forenoon in the judgment-
hall, the afternoon upon the cross. He stood
touching the very edge of these great suffer-
ings. The baptism that he had to be baptized
with was now at hand — and how was he strait-
ened till it was accomplished ! — a few quiet
hours lay between him and his entrance into
the cloud. With a desire more earnest and ve-
hement than on any other occasion, he wished
to spend those hours with his apostles, — to take
his last leave of them, — to give his farewell
instructions to them. He had never before
partaken of the Passover with them. He de-
sired to do it this once. He knew that it could

The Extosube of Judas. 279

never be repeated. He knew that this was
virtually the last Jewish Passover, that with
the offering up of himself in the great sacrifice
of the following day that long line of Passover
celebrations that had run now through fifteen
hundred years, down from the night in Egypt
when the first-born were slain, was to be
brought to its close. He knew that all which
this rite prefigured was then to be fulfilled,
and that that fulfillment was to issue in the
erection of a spiritual kingdom, in which other
kind of tables were to be spread, and other
kind of wine to be drunk. ' With desire I
have desired to eat this Passover with you be-
fore I suffer : for I say unto you, I will not any
more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the
kingdom of God. And he took the cup, and
gave thanks, and said, Take this, and divide it
among yourselves : for I say unto you, I will
not drink of the fruit of the vine until the king-
dom of God shall come/ Emphatic here the
double repetition of the words, ' for I say unto
you,' — calling special attention to the words
that followed. Responding to this call, we fix
our thoughts upon these words ; but beyond
the intimation they contain of that being our
Lord's last Passover, and of his speedy entering

280 Thursday of the Passion Week.

into an estate altogether higher, yet in some
respects alike, they remain almost as mysteri-
ous to us as they must have been to those who
heard them for the first time at the supper-
table.

In washing the disciples' feet, Jesus had said,
' Ye are clean, but not all. For he knew who
should betray him ; therefore said he, Ye are
not all clean.'* So early, from the very first,
did the thought of Judas and his meditated
deed press upon the Saviour's spirit. When
the washing of feet was over, and Jesus sat
down, and the repast began, they all noticed
that there was a cloud upon their Master's
countenance, and the disciple who, sitting next
to him, could best read the expression of his
face, saw that he ' was troubled in spirit.'
What was vexing him? what was marring the
joy of such a meeting? They are not left long
in doubt as to the cause. Christ breaks the
silence into which, in the sadness of his spirit,
he had fallen : he speaks in tone and manner
quite different from that of his ordinary collo-
quial address. And he 'testified and said,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you
which eateth with me shall betray me!' Be-

* John xiii, 10, 11.

The Exposure of Judas. 281

tray him! how? for what? to what? Betray
such a Master at such a time ! Bad enough for
any common disciple to use the means and op-
portunities that acquaintance gave to effect his
ruin ; but for one of them, his own familiar
friends, whom he has drawn so closely round
his person, upon whom he had lavished such
affection, — for one of those admitted to this
most sacred of meals, the holiest, seal of the
nearest earthlv bond ; for one of the twelve to
betray him ! No wonder, as the thought of all
the guilt which such an act involved sprung up
within their breasts, that they should be, as
they were, 'exceeding sorrowful;' that they
should look ' one on another, doubting of whom
he spake,' — fixing searching looks on all round,
to see whether any countenance showed the
confusion of felt guilt, that, after inquiring
among themselves which of them it' was that
'should do this thing,' they should begin,
' every one of them, to say unto him, one by
one, Is it I ? and another, Is it I ? You like
the men who met such an announcement in such
a way. You like them, for the burning sense
of shame they show at the very thought of
there being one among them capable of such a
deed. You like them for the strong desire

282 Thursday or the Passion Week.

that each man shows to clear himself from the
charge. You like them for the prompt appeal
that each man makes to Jesus. Above all,
you like them that there is none so bold and
over-confident, not even Peter, as at once to
think and say of himself that there was no pos-
sibility it could be he, but that all, not without
some secret wonder and self-distrust, put in
turn the question, ' Lord, is it I '?' All but
one ! He did not at first dare to put this ques-
tion to his Master. In the confusion, his hav-
ing omitted to do so would not be noticed.
He had returned look for look, as they at first
scanned each other ; no face calmer or less con-
fused ; no one suspecting Judas.

To the many questions coining so eagerly
from all sides and ends of the table, Jesus
made the general reply : ' He that dippeth his
hand with me in the dish, the same shall be-
tray me.' Had there been but one vessel con-
taining the Paschal sauce into which all dipped,
this would have been nothing more than a
repetition of the first announcement that it
was one of them now eating with him at the
same table that should betray him. But if, as
we have every reason to believe, there were
more than one dish upon the table, this second

The Exposure of Judas. 283

saying of our Lord would limit the betrayal to
that smaller circle of which he was himself the
centre, — the three or four all of whom dipped
into the same vessel. Within that circle was
Judas, who, when he heard the terrible words
that followed, ' The Son of Man goeth as it is
written of him, but woe unto that man by whom
the Son of Man is betrayed ! It had been
good for that man if he had not been born,'
whether from the circle having been drawn so
much the narrower taking him in among the
few, one of whom must be the man, or from
the look of his Master being fixed on him, the
spell of which he could not resist, or from the
very burden and terror of a denunciation
which sent a thrill through every heart, could
no longer remain silent, but said to Jesus, as
the others had done before : ' Master, is it I ?'
Jesus said unto him : ' Thou hast said ;' that is,
1 Yes, thou art the man.'

We have the express testimony of the fourth
Evangelist that no man at the table but him-
self knew for what purpose Judas at last went
out, that none of them at this time suspected
him as the betrayer. No man at the table
then could have heard that answer of our Lord ;
u thing that we can scarcely imagine how it

284 Thuksday of the Passion Week.

could be, but by supposing that Judas lay upon
the seat immediately next to Jesus on the one
side, as John lay upon the one nearest to him
on the other. Assuming this, Jesus might
easily have spoken to one so near in such an
under tone, that none could overhear.

Let us imagine now, that close to Judas, on
the same side, or one or two off from John,
upon the other side, Peter was sitting, and the
last incident in the strange story becomes intel-
ligible. None have heard our Saviour's specific
designation of the traitor to himself. The ter-
rible malediction, however, pronounced upon
him has whetted their curiosity to know who
he is. Peter sees that John is the most likely
one to find it out. If the Master will tell it to
any one, it will be to him, he couching so close
to Jesus that he has only to throw back his
head for it to rest upon his Master's bosom.
Into his ear, therefore, any secret may be easily
and safely whispered. As Peter is so placed
that he cannot well do it otherwise without his
object revealing itself, by signs rather than by
words he tells John to ask. John does so, and
gets an answer that was specific and unambig-
uous ; one, however, that no one at table but
himself could have had any knowledge of.

The Exposure of ,/udas. 285

'He it is,' said Jesus, ' to whom I shall give a
Bop, when I have dipped it. And when he had
dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscarvot,
the son of Simon. Two men of the twelve now
knew to whom the Lord referred, — Judas, on
the one side, to whom Jesus had directly said,
' Thou art the man,' and John, now, on the
other, to whom the sign was as explicit as any
words could be, a sign, however, only to John
himself, the others not having heard the words
that gave the act its meaning. The giving of
the sop to him decided the course of the be-
trayer. ' That thou doest,' said Jesus to him,
1 do quickly.' He rose and went out immedi-
ately ; and it was night. And into that night
he went carrying a blacker night within his
own dark breast. And now, how are we to
interpret this striking passage in the history of
our Lord ?

1. This exposure and denunciation of the
traitor may have been one of the needful steps
in the accomplishment of the divine designs.
Judas had already made a compact with the
chief priests to deliver Jesus into their hands.
But of the time and manner of that deliverance
nothing had been said. As to these, nothing
had been resolved on. We may well believe

286 Thursday of the Passion "Week.

that Judas entered the guest-chamber without
any premeditated purpose of executing his de-
sign that night. The discovery, however, that
his Master already knew all that he had done,
all that he meant to do, the judgment passed,
the terrible woe denounced on him, instead of
checking him in his career, served but to spur
him on, and form within him, and fix the pur-
pose to go and do that very night the thing he
had engaged to do. Operating in this Wdy,
what was said and done by Jesus may have con-
tributed to the accomplishment within the ap-
pointed time of the predetermined counsel and
purpose of the Most High.

2. We have Christ's own authority for saying
that one of his reasons for acting as he did to-
ward Judas was to afford to the other apostles
an evidence of his Messiahship. ' I speak not
of you all,' he had said ; ' I know whom I have
chosen ; but that the Scripture may be fulfilled,
He that eateth bread with me hath lifted up his
heel against me. Now I tell you before it
come, that when it is come to pass, ye may be-
lieve that I am he.' Had nothing been said
beforehand by Jesus, had everything ran the
course it did, their Master remaining apparently
in profound ignorance of how his arrest in the

The Extosure of Judas. 287

garden was to be brought about, then to the
apostles' eyes this mystery would have hung
around the whole procedure, that Jesus had
been deceived, had suffered a traitor to enter
unknown and undetected into the innermost
circle of his friends, had Mien by an unexpected
blow from the hand of one fancied to be friendly.
As it was, what a proof had the apostles set be*
fore their eyes, that Jesus knew what was ir
man, and needed not that any one should tel]
him what was in man. None of them had dis-
trusted Judas. He could have given no pat-
ent proof of his false-heartedness. He had
kept up the appearance of true friendship to the
last, so as to deceive every other eye. Yet
when all is over, and they recall what their
Master had said a year before his death, that
one of them was a devil, and remember espe-
cially the sayings of the guest-chamber, how
vividly would the conviction come home to the
minds of the apostles, that they had to do with
one from whom no secrets were hidden, before
whose all-seeing eye every heart lay naked and
bare !

3. Let us see here an exhibition of the
humanity of Jesus, his being truly one of us,
with all the common sensibility of our nature,

288 Thursday of the Passion Week.

moral and emotional. There is nothing that
the human heart so shrinks from and shudders
at as treachery in a friend ; the wearing of a
mask, the acceptance of all the tokens and
pledges of affection, the profession of admira-
tion, attachment, love, yet deep within coldness,
sullenness, selfishness, a waiting for and seeking
for opportunity to make gain of the cultivated
friendship, and a readiness, when the time
comes, to sacrifice the friend on the altar of
pride, or covetousness, or ambition. And if
Jesus resented the hypocrisy and treachery of
Judas, if his spirit recoiled from near contact
with the traitor, if when these last hours had
come which he wished to spend alone with
those he had loved so well and was loving now,
if that could be, better than ever the nearer the
hour of his departure came, — he felt as if that
guest-chamber were defiled by such a presence
as that of Judas, and felt burdened and re-
strained till he was gone, what is this but say-
ing that there beat in him the same heart that
beats in all of us, when that heart is right
within ? One object of the Saviour in so soon
introducing the topic of his bet